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  • Reflection on Majesty

    Psalm 8 and Majesty

    I’m employed as a writer, but the writing I do is scientific and business writing. It’s nice to help explain the science done by the researchers in the School of Medicine department of radiology, or to help communicate broadly about our department activities, but this doesn’t really scratch the creative itch. Over the decades, I’ve written short stories, a young adult novel, and some really bad poetry. The past few years as a lay Dominican, I’ve absolutely loved writing the reflections in this blog, although they are theological and academic rather than strictly “creative” writing.

    The Passion of Creation, Leonid Pasternak (1892) | Image from Reddit.

    So, the itch to write something purely creative – not didactic or instructional – has remained. At the same time, my path as a lay Dominican has winnowed my endeavors to ones that serve the greater purpose of bringing myself and others closer to God. Simply put, stories about the world seem weak and one-dimensional unless they probe our spiritual nature. It occurred to me that the psalms are perhaps the greatest poetic achievement in our faith tradition, and since we chant them throughout the Divine Office, it wouldn’t hurt to examine them more deeply and even use them as creative fodder for myself.

    Thus, my psalm project was born. It’s been an interesting start. I have had some trouble breaking out of the Dominican pray-study-preach paradigm – not that I want to necessarily break out of the Order’s charism, but it made the resulting poetry too didactic and stiffly instructional. Recently, I’m finding that I still go through the reflection process, sometimes in verse, and then I try to write a poem after I’ve disgorged from my sometimes-too-analytical brain.

    I thought I’d post one here. This is Psalm 8 – I mainly use the new, revised Abbey Psalms that are used for the Divine Office, but I also compare with Ronald Knox’s The Psalms, a New Translation (1947) and the Jewish collection of Torah translations (with side-by-side Hebrew) on sefaria.org. There are some turns of phrase (maybe 5% or less of the psalm) that I find really evocative from these texts and use accordingly. I also find the Interlinear bible on biblehub.com to be very helpful when trying to get to the bottom of a specific word or phrase. So, first, here’s the psalm itself:

    PSALM 8

    (For the Choirmaster upon the gittith. A Psalm of David.)

    2     O LORD, our Lord, how majestic
              is your name through all the earth!
              Your majesty is set above the heavens.

     3      From the mouths of children and of babes
              you fashioned praise to foil your enemy,
              to silence the foe and the rebel.

    4       When I see the heavens, the work of your fingers,
              the moon and the stars which you arranged,
    5        what is man that you should keep him in mind,
              the son of man that you care for him?

    6       Yet you have made him little lower than the angels;
              with glory and honor you crowned him,
    7        gave him power over the works of your hands:
              you put all things under his feet,

    8       All of them, sheep and oxen,
              yes, even the cattle of the fields,
    9       birds of the air, and fish of the sea
              that make their way through the waters.

    10     O LORD, our Lord, how majestic
              is your name through all the earth!

     

    Next, the reflection. To me, the focus of the psalm is the majesty of God’s name. Not only God, but God’s name. Secondarily, there is a nice bit about how much honor has been given to humanity despite our undeservedness in the grand scheme of things. But the first point really grabbed me. Our God famously gives Moses a name that is not really a name when Moses asks (Exodus, chapter 3). A simple name cannot explain/contain/describe the Creator. A name would, in a way, enable us to put God in a box, make Him subject to or a product of our own minds. How is God’s name majestic? As I pondered:

    What is in a name,
    When you teach us your name is
    No name as such?
    Eh-yeh asher eh-yeh
    You told Moses:
    I am/will be who I am/will be.

    For millennia, rabbis have discussed this proclamation, said in what is strictly the future form of the verb to be because that verb has no present tense in Hebrew. So, His name implies something not complete – I will be … This deepens the mystery, for how can our God, who is perfect and complete in every way, lacking nothing, imply that He is not completed in something? Christians can read great importance in this statement, for His unveiling of Himself to humanity isn’t complete until Jesus Christ is born, lives, dies, and resurrects. But Jews, too, could see that this meant He was caught up meaningfully with His People in time. He was leading them to the Promised Land – He was saying that His nature of love would be revealed to them over time.

    And the next line in Exodus gives us what pretty much everyone sees as the proper name of the Jewish God, YHWH: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘YHWH, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’” Note that our Bibles say “The Lord,” not YHWH, out of respect for the holy name of God. Forgive me, here, for discussing it so openly, and let’s all proceed with appropriate reverence. 

    Adoration of the Name of God, Francisco Goya (1772), a fresco on the ceiling of the cupola over the Small Choir of the Virgin in the Basílica de Nuestra Señora del Pilar in Zaragoza. | Wikimedia Commons.

    Why am I calling His name a “name-that-is-not-a-name” when clearly He provides a proper name? “YHWH” is used over 6,800 times in the Old Testament! And, apparently, it was commonly spoken by the ancient Jews – so much so that we have a written stone tablet dating from 840 BC called the Meshe Stele, written by a Moabite king, no less, who refers to taking back a city the Israelites had conquered, and plundering the “vessels of YHWH.” So the Jews spoke His Name so often and openly that even their enemies knew it. Nevertheless, it’s a historical fact that sometime after the destruction of Solomon’s temple in 587 BC, Jews stopped speaking the name except in rabbinic schools. Centuries later, we encounter a full ban on speaking the name, on pain of death. When encountered in scriptures, Jews automatically substitute Adonai (My Lord), Elohim (God), or HaShem (The Name). Today, there is debate on how to pronounce it because the exact pronunciation has been lost and it is written in “unpointed” Hebrew (without little points below the letters to indicate vowel sounds), although “Yahweh” is almost universally accepted (while “Jehovah” is another name we’ve used in Christianity).

    Perhaps there is more going on with this name God provides. Let’s look at the Hebrew characters, known as the Tetragrammaton. The four letters that I have been representing as YHWH, are actually yod, he, waw, and he. They look like this (remember to read right-to-left): יהוה.  So, yod is י, he is ה, and waw is ו. Let’s put on our linguist hats for a moment so that we can parse why our Bible notes that the Tetragrammaton “is connected with the verb hayah, ‘to be’.” The verb to be (hayah) in Hebrew contains three of the Tetragrammaton letters in the infinitive: he, yod, and he. God gives us a name that is indeed very close to forms of the verb to be, perhaps poetically inverted:

    היה

    to be
    he/it was

    אהיה 

    I will be

    היו

    (plural things) were
    (plural things) would/will be

    יהוה

    Yahweh

    So, about as far as I can get as a non-Hebrew-literate person is that the yod, he, and waw are all used in various forms of the verb to be. Why they are combined in such a way to form the Tetragrammaton, I cannot fathom, but linguistically, it is clearly tied up in forms of being. This is undoubtedly why Jewish and Christian rabbis, monks, and scholars all note this relationship while not exactly being sure what it signifies. God gave us a name that speaks of being, but in a mysterious way that we cannot quite comprehend. As I reflected:

    YHWH Adonenu:
    Lord, our Lord.
    And the Jews, unable or unwilling to pronounce the cipher,
    Say “Adonai Adonenu,” multiplying plurals in an enthusiastic frenzy.

    Perhaps John in Patmos best unravels
    For our ears
    The name that overflows time,
    “Him who is and who was and who is coming.”

    At this point, I think we’ve put off for long enough the great revelations that came to humanity in the Christ Event. St. John is the one who brings home the point in all of the “I am” statements made by Jesus. In particular, we hear: “you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am” (John 8:24b). Upon statements like this, the Christian faith stands: Jesus is God, co-eternal with the Father and the Holy Spirit. So, what does Jesus have to reveal about the name of God (other than referring to himself in the identical to be way)? “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name” (Luke 11:2). This, I think, is more important than we might think.

    But more simply, Jesus,
    Master of complexity in the simple,
    Says, Our Father in Heaven,
    To show that being children
    Is a holy call
    And loving like the Father
    Is the greatest glory.

    This One you sent,
    Son and Sanctifier of the earth,
    Brings the divine into our grubby existence,
    Infuses every person with the Holy Trinity,
    Makes your name familiar and holy at the same time.

    He removes the distance
    Between YHWH and our mouths,
    Prompting us to boldly and lovingly
    Call out to you.

    And so my reflection goes. There are more verses, but the question remains, is it a poem? It feels like instruction. Perhaps using some nice language or phrasing, but instruction nonetheless. I listened to some Catholic poets on YouTube, notably, Dana Gioia, a poet and fellow of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Poetry, I began to think, might have to be incarnate in the things of this world (like Christ) before revealing itself to be something more.

    So I gave it another shot:

    The Grand Tetons and Jenny Lake (detail), Lewis A. Ramsey (1926) | Image from fineartamerica.com.

    Majesty

    Mountains, we feel, are majestic,
    Scratching heaven’s floorboards,
    Celestial dust coating every summit.
    People, too, conjure a presence
    Like my setter clothed in ermine fur,
    Eyes locked on the distant grackle’s plummet.

    They share a distance, an intensity
    As striking as the single peal of the tower bell
    Announcing matins to the frosted clover.
    Their majesty is suspended like that ring
    And our straining to hear its last echo
    Lost somewhere in the fallow and stover.

    This is majesty here on earth:
    A moment defying words to capture the
    Pure and giant thingness of being apart.
    The potter’s genius inhabits the clay,
    From slip to ash-blown kiln, his fire animates
    Those crags and regal dogs who bear his art.

    Generative, inexhaustible, massive presence,
    So there we can’t bear, obsessing on costumes
    While Olivier stuns in his final Lear.
    As a sign, your artist’s mark compresses,
    And by design, frees majesty in the world,
    Its slipperiness is the very majesty we fear.

    For your name, ever unpronounceable,
    Is more than a riddle, as you explain –
    “I am/was/will be what I am/was/will be”
    Fashions the clay into being by threading
    Himself into it all, connecting us more
    Than the silty substrate could ever achieve.

    Until, that is, you shattered the world,
    Tearing the veil that obscured your face,
    Unlocking your name to be prayed anew.
    Majesty, it turns out, can be leaned upon,
    Gazed at fully, by recognizing your paternity,
    Our Father, if we but accept you.

    Well, it’s a start, and it’s all about the journey. Let me know what you think. I doubt I’ll ever be a terribly great poet, but I hope that reading and thinking about these things can bring us closer to the beauty that comes from God.

  • The Generous Harvest Without Cost

    The Generous Harvest Without Cost

    Saturday in the 1st Week of Advent: Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26, Matthew 9:35-10:1, 5a, 6-8.

    In today’s readings, there are many themes to explore, from the richness of God’s promise to the use of agricultural imagery. In order to keep this reflection from ranging all over the place, I’d like to focus on how God’s compassion is the moving force behind all of salvation, from His promises to the prophets to Christ’s coming to our ongoing work as the Church.

    Isaiah proclaims, “He will be gracious to you when you cry out, as soon as he hears he will answer you.” This promise of God’s responsiveness and generosity occurs throughout the Old Testament. Isaiah continues, using an image that will be central to Christ’s own sacramental words: “The Lord will give you the bread you need and the water for which you thirst.” Isaiah hears the Word of God, but its significance won’t become clear until Christ declares to the Samaritan woman at the well, “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). The bread is likewise much more generous, much deeper, than earthly bread alone. We now know that the Bread of Life is Christ’s very body that we eat in the Eucharist, and Jesus explains how his body contains life-giving sustenance: “I have food to eat that you do not know about. … My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work” (Jn 4:32, 34). We partake in this heavenly food, which is in fact doing God’s will, when we take Christ into our own bodies (see If You Knew the Gift! for a longer reflection on this). Simply put, God’s generosity and purpose in giving is so much greater than we expect or can even imagine.

    The Holy Eucharist, provenance unknown | Image from pinterest.com

    Isaiah then prophesies in a crystal clear way the coming of Christ: “No longer will your Teacher hide himself, but with your own eyes you shall see your Teacher, While from behind, a voice shall sound in your ears: ‘This is the way; walk in it,’ when you would turn to the right or to the left.” Let’s consider for a moment that this act of giving us a Teacher in human form is another compassionate response to something for which we deeply yearn. A person who loves God longs to see His face, to do His will, but the mystery of our invisible and silent God is often a stumbling block. God knows this and has compassion for our lowly condition, scrambling about in this world blindly. The Incarnation of Christ as a baby in Mary’s womb is an incredible act of compassion for humanity. God comes to Earth so that we can see Him, hear Him, touch Him, and sustain ourselves sacramentally on His Body and Blood throughout these end times. There is no other reason but His love and compassion for His people, all of humanity. 

    And the second part of Isaiah’s prophecy above, where the voice of the Spirit tells us that “This is the way; walk in it,” is enacted when Jesus tells Thomas, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him” (Jn 14:6-7). Jesus reiterates that He is the answer to humanity’s longing to see God here on earth, but there’s more. By being the way, the truth, and the life, Jesus is giving us access to the heavenly food he references in the episode of the woman at the well: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.” So, what is the “bread you need” that the Lord gives us? This multi-faceted mystical food is both the body of His Son — uniting the spirit and the body, heaven and earthly needs — as well as an entire way of being that as Jesus tells us serves as sustenance for the body, too. This is the significance of Isaiah prophesying the Spirit saying “This is the way; walk in it” and of Jesus telling us “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

    This is not just a moral lesson! Yes, living in the Way of Christ inherently means good moral choices and upright living, but this Way is a mystical link to our trinitarian Lord, whose love sustains us, even biologically so! Here’s the great leap for modern minds ruled by scientific “laws.” Do we really believe that a way of living can sustain us biologically, even if that way is God’s Way? Well, I share your skepticism, being a child of modern times, too. But let’s consider our saints; that is, those who have come closest to actually living the Way of Christ. I’ll take one of our great Dominican saints as an example: St. Catherine of Siena. Her confessor and biographer, Blessed Raymond of Capua, writes in The Life of Saint Catherine of Siena:

    After the virgin had had the first vision she was so full of the Holy Spirit that she went without food or drink for the whole of Lent until the feast of Our Lord’s Ascension; and yet despite this she was always bursting with life and happiness. … she was able to eat on Ascension Day, when she had wheaten bread and oil and vegetables. For it was not possible for any rich food to enter her stomach, either by natural or by supernatural means. When that day was over, however, she resumed her habitual fasting. Then she gradually reached a state of total abstinence almost unheard of in our times. But if her body took nothing, her spirit fed most sumptuously in its stead. While these things were happening, in fact, the holy virgin was devoutly receiving Holy Communion very frequently indeed, and on each occasion she was given so much grace that, with her bodily senses and all their inclinations thoroughly mortified, her soul and body were both equally nourished by the power of the Spirit. From this anyone with any faith must conclude that her life was wholly miraculous. 

    I myself have often seen that poor body, sustained by no more than a few glasses of cold water, reduced to such a state of exhaustion that we were all worried, imagining that she was about to die at any moment. Instead, as soon as any opportunity arose to honour the Divine Name, or do good to some soul, there would be a sudden wonderful change, and without the help of any medicine Catherine would regain all her life and strength and be strong and cheerful. She would get up, walk about, and go about her work as easily as the people who were with her and who were in good health: she did not know the meaning of fatigue.

    I ask you: where did all this come from, if not from the Spirit who delights in such works? What could not be done by nature, He did by miracle. Is it not perfectly clear that it was He who gave strength to her soul and body? (155-156).

    We see from Raymond the two sources of Catherine’s miraculous sustenance: the Body of Christ in the Eucharist and the Way of Christ in her prayer and good works. And don’t think this is some exaggeration by an eager biographer and friend — her lack of eating was so well documented and commented upon that she was ridiculed for it by many devout religious people, saying it was a trick of the devil or her trying to seem holier than the rest of them while taking food on the sly. She wanted to keep others from their hateful thoughts, so she tried to eat tiny morsels when at dinner with them but Raymond tells us, “The holy virgin did not swallow any of the vegetables or other things that she masticated, for she spat out all the large bits; but because it was impossible for some little bits of food or juice not to go down into her stomach, and because she liked to drink fresh water to refresh her throat and jaws, she was obliged to throw up everything she had swallowed every day. … She did this throughout the rest of her life because of the grumblers, particularly those who were scandalized by her fasting” (162).

    St. Catherine of Siena (1746), Giovanni Battista Tiepolo | Wikimedia Commons.

    Let’s restrain ourselves from diagnosing some eating disorder or extreme food allergy here. Raymond details how Catherine had utterly given her thoughts, will, and soul into God’s hands. She was a saint by any measure, and lived the Way of Christ. There is ample evidence that she was sustained not only spiritually, but bodily by that Way. 

    My only point is that God’s generosity is so great that it goes deeper and farther than we even expect. Many people would just be happy with physical bread for a day. Others with pain in this life but happiness for eternity. But God gives us both, here and now, because the Reign of Christ has already begun and we have both His Body and His Way to sustain us spiritually and bodily – in this life and the next.

    Caveat: I’m not suggesting that any of us try out the “St. Catherine Diet.” But this wordplay on diet fads tells us much about how we approach food, our bodies, and biology. The science of intake and output is a pathetic shadow of what’s important and lasting when it comes to our bodies on this earth. Jesus and the saints open up to us a new understanding of bodies in time, bodies and their interplay with spiritual food. I find this fascinating and inspiring, even if I doubt that I’ll ever experience it.

    One of the lessons in this different way of looking at food is that, unlike today’s body-image-obsessed thinking, it operates on eschewing thoughts of oneself and thinking of others instead. This frees up our concern with our own bodies and using food simply for our own benefit. What, then, in this heavenly worldview, is food? Does it lose meaning? Is it just something we need and use in this life, but really holds no value? As a devoted home cook who loves food, this is a depressing thought! 

    Still Life (c.1640s), Pieter Claesz | Image from fineartamerica.com.

    I think an answer can be found in the use of harvest imagery by both Isaiah and Jesus in today’s readings. Isaiah proclaims, “He will give rain for the seed that you sow in the ground, And the wheat that the soil produces will be rich and abundant.” God’s life-giving water, the rain for the seed we sow, is His Son. He is the life! And He produces a rich and abundant harvest. How He goes about this is detailed in the Gospel. Matthew tells us, “he summoned his Twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. Jesus sent out these Twelve …” This is the establishment of the Church and the Way, where Jesus establishes a new Israel with 12 Apostles taking the place of the 12 tribes. God’s plan is to very overtly establish a new Way, Truth, and Life by having Christ work through his Apostolic Church. Christ bestows on them miraculous powers, making them adopted sons of God, allowing the love and action of the Trinity to flow through them. Could Christ have snapped His fingers and cured everyone in the Holy Land? Sure, but that wasn’t the Way that God had planned. The Way is important because we must “walk in it” in order to receive the grace and sanctification that prepares us to be in God’s presence for ever. Having us be active participants in the Way rather than doing it for us gives our lives meaning.

    This higher meaning gives us focus beyond the immediate and beyond our individual bubble. It’s an outward turning rather than an inward turning. The gifts Christ bestows on the Apostles are meant to be used for the benefit of others, not for the benefit of the Apostles. He tells them to proclaim “The Kingdom of heaven is at hand” as they cure, resurrect the dead and drive out demons. (Just imagine the burning glow of Christ’s glory infusing them as his inexorable Reign begins in human history!) Importantly, though, He ends his instructions with, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” He knows the sad temptations humans have when granted power, to use it seeking personal glory. He reminds them that they have freely been graced with these miraculous powers and they should freely give them. The subtext is that the power is not theirs at all — it’s God’s. They must be turned outward towards their fellow human because this is God’s posture, always giving, always generous, always loving. They are the first to walk the Way of Christ, and it entails not just the doing but a pure, loving generosity of spirit.

    But let’s get back to the harvest and what this heavenly perspective on food might be. Jesus invokes the now-famous saying “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few” before charging his Apostles with their mission. But what makes him say this? Matthew tells us: “At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.” It is his overwhelming compassion for humanity that prompts him. When we are ashamed of our sins or feel completely unworthy of God’s love, remember this! It is precisely our fallen state, our flailing about in temptation and sin, like sheep without a shepherd, that makes God want to help us. He not only knows all of our flaws, He is so overwhelmed with loving compassion to help us that He will do anything, including allowing his Son to be hung on a cross. Christ looks at the suffering and pathetic people and what is his response? Is it condemnation? No. Is it scolding? No.

    It’s an excitement for a plentiful harvest.

    Wait, what?

    The Harvest (Zur Erntezeit), 1891, Friedrich Kallmorgen | Image from flickr.com.

    Yes, this is so unexpected that we must slow down and take notice. To Christ, crowds of troubled people = an abundant harvest. What logic is driving this? There is only one logic at work, the logic of love. Only love, which soothes trouble and heals deep wounds, would consider crowds of suffering, troubled, sinful people to be wheat to harvest. This is because love — God’s love in particular — isn’t just a nice emotion or a feel-good moment. It’s entirely transformative. This is demonstrated through healing lepers, raising the dead, etc., but the bodily miracle simply mirrors the deeper spiritual miracle. It’s deeper because bodies will eventually wear out and die, but the soul will last forever. God’s love transforms sinful souls, doomed to spend eternity away from God, into healthy, flourishing souls that will feed others spiritually as they walk the Way of Christ. I must imagine that this is why Christ sees a plentiful harvest in these crowds: because his transformative Way (which is itself sustenance) will create more food for others, multiplying its way around the globe.

    Christ’s vision for humanity is a vision of glory. It is a perfecting vision; what we are called to be, feeding one another in the same way the three persons of the Trinity endlessly pour out their love for one another. Food, as we are starting to see, has a deeply multiplied meaning in this heavenly perspective. Food, of course, sustains our bodies; it is something coming from outside that nourishes us. God shows us that we can be food for others, too, in a similar way that Christ is for us (minus the Holy Eucharist). The concept of something-from-without-nourishing is evident as we are transformed from being inward-facing to being outward-facing. We become spiritual food for others, focused only on being a nourishing agent for them. We become travelers on the Way of Christ, joining in the great mystical Church, proving humanity with a new model of living, both here on earth and later in heaven.

  • Glimpsed by Prophets

    Tuesday in the 1st Week of Advent: Isaiah 11:1-10, Luke 10:21-24.

    Imagine what it must have been to be a true prophet! Someone like Isaiah, Joel, or Jeremiah – given glimpses of God’s will and the heavenly kingdom. Today we hear an important prophecy of Advent: Isaiah sees Jesus, sprung from the “root of Jesse,” describing him and the world he ushers in. It’s remarkable, especially in light of yesterday’s reflection, because Isaiah describes both the Jesus Christ who comes to the Apostles in the flesh and the Jesus Christ who is the bringer of the Reign of God and end times. As we reflected, this is the same Christ, the same moment of kairos that we anticipate during Advent. Let’s dive into this moment with one of our great prophets, Isaiah, for we, too, participate in the prophetic announcement he makes.

    Just as we mark Advent as a time of paring down and preparation, Isaiah foresees that God’s people will be winnowed and devastated before the root of Jesse blossoms. In the chapter prior to today’s reading, Isaiah speaks of God’s wrath at his “godless nation,” those “who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right” (Is 10:1-2a). Isaiah tells them that God uses the Assyrians as “the rod of my anger,” and describes the penance of the Jewish nation as the cutting down of a forest. “Look, the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts, will lop the boughs with terrifying power; the tallest trees will be cut down, and the lofty will be brought low” (Is 10:33). This is truly a penance for sins committed against God, and we can connect our penitential season to this ages-old story among God’s people. Isaiah writes of the completeness of the humbling: “The remnant of the trees of his forest will be so few that a child can write them down” (Is 10:19). This is important! We so rarely take seriously the need for things like fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and humility before our God, but it is emphasized continually in our scriptures. From Abraham taking his son to an altar to Esther, in sackcloth, praying to God for three days to Jesus himself, stripped and beaten and hung on a cross (penance for our sins, not his), we are reminded that penance and supplication are necessary precursors to deliverance. We must ask ourselves how we are participating in penance and preparation this Advent.

    Upon this backdrop of a devastated forest, Isaiah foresees a shoot springing from the root of Jesse “and from his roots a bud shall blossom.” This new growth comes from old and revered rootstock: Jesse, grandson of Ruth and Boaz, was from the tribe of Judah and his youngest son was David. Yes, the greatest king of the Israelites sprung from Jesse, but more importantly, many generations later that line of David produces Joseph, Jesus’s father. Genealogy is important in our Judeo-Christian tradition because it shows how God remains true to His People over time and why the passing down of God’s revelation through families is so important.

    O Root (c. 2010), Sr. Ansgar Holmberg, CSJ, of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet | Image from thejesusquestion.org.

    I find Isaiah’s vision so striking because he is able to perceive the action of the Trinity. “The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, A Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the LORD, and his delight shall be the fear of the LORD.” We’ve all seen people who stand out from others, who have a light in them, who say or do something that seems divinely inspired, even if just for a moment. Imagine what Isaiah sees in Jesus, who is the Son of God, with the Spirit of the Lord indeed resting upon him, instilled in his very being, giving him wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, and, reciprocally, such a sense of thanks and fealty to his Father that he delights in the fear of the Lord. Great mysteries of the Trinity are revealed to Isaiah in this moment, and he sees the interweaving love of the Three Persons.

    After this vision of the Trinity in Christ, Isaiah shares with us a vision of his righteous works: “Not by appearance shall he judge, nor by hearsay shall he decide, But he shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the land’s afflicted.” Here we have a clear statement about how the righteous man (the Messiah, in fact) operates in terms of social justice: a preference for the poor and afflicted, without bias based on appearances. This is echoed in the book of Samuel, which relates how God guided him to choose the next king (David) from among Jesse’s sons: “the Lord said to Samuel [about the oldest son, Eliab], ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart’” (1 Sam 16:7). God reveals to both prophets, Isaiah and Samuel, how his sight works (it peers into the unseen heart of humans) and how justice should flow from this type of God-bestowed sight and wisdom. It is worth re-reading the chronicles of David in the book of Samuel; we see parallels with Christ and how the Spirit of God dwelt with his Chosen People – specifically in the line of Jesse – in so many eras.

    But wait, you might say, perhaps Isaiah is just talking about David in this passage? Let’s get our historical timelines in order. King David made Jerusalem the capital of the united Jewish nation right around 1000 BC. Isaiah didn’t proclaim his prophecies until almost 300 years later, around 740-700 BC! He couldn’t have been talking about David because David was long dead; the kingdom had split between Judah and Israel and was about to be destroyed by the Assyrian empire. The blossoming bud from the root of Jesse is someone farther down the line from David. Isaiah the prophet sees Christ the Messiah, and although he doesn’t know his name, he describes him and the world he ushers in.

    Isaiah delivers his prophecy with some beautiful poetry: “with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked. Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness a belt upon his hips.” Indeed, as the incarnate Word of God, Jesus’s every word accuses and condemns wickedness. He is wrapped in justice, and will deliver it in the final judgment, and as for faithfulness, his very incarnation is the manifestation of God’s faithfulness to humanity. Only poetry can strive for the wonder and sheer beauty of this perfect Messiah that Isaiah glimpses in his prophetic vision.

    And then Isaiah’s prophecy changes from describing Christ to describing the world that Christ ushers in: “Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; The calf and the young lion shall browse together, with a little child to guide them.” These scenes are certainly miraculous, and, importantly, they describe a world where the needs and desires of the flesh are gone. In their place, peace reigns. The fallenness of our world is no more, in fact the very “rules” under which we think the world operates are confounded. We see nothing of the instinct of hunting creatures or the incompatibility of vulnerability and ingrained predation. Isaiah shows us a deeper reality in creation where all beings share a peaceful spirit. 

    The Peaceable Kingdom, woodcut (1950), Fritz Eichenberg, for The Catholic Worker | Image from michaelanthonyhoward.com.

    This scene culminates in the most frightening scene for a parent: “The baby shall play by the cobra’s den, and the child lay his hand on the adder’s lair. There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be filled with knowledge of the LORD, as water covers the sea.” And here, in the place where our human instinct to protect our young from danger merges with the from-the-gut animal instincts we see confounded in the preceding verses, we start to understand that a greater parent provides such powerful love that it conquers animal instinct itself. The Father does not permit “harm or ruin” because His essence infuses all of creation “as water covers the sea.” He perfects creation and removes all violence and conflict, simply through His being. This is the power of God and our ultimate destiny.

    How seamlessly Isaiah sees the humanity of Jesus as the bud from the root of Jesse as well as His divinity as the Incarnate Word as well as His kingdom, established in and with the Father’s love that transforms humanity. What Isaiah glimpses is no less than the complete mystery of the Son of God, in his kairos moment of incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and final judgment. This is properly called the Christ Event that descends upon the world and ruptures history like nothing before or after. What an ecstatic vision for Isaiah! How could he even take it in and utter it without the grace of God? 

    Importantly, this is the very vision we celebrate in Advent. We await the coming not just of the babe but the Christ Event, even while we exist within the reign he began with his sacrifice and resurrection. We exist now within a thread of historical time that is superseded by and subsumed within the great Christ Event that is ongoing.

    Turning our attention to today’s gospel from St. Luke, we must have Isaiah’s prophecy in mind. Recall that Isaiah’s first words about this bud from the stump of Jesse are: “The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him: a Spirit of wisdom and of understanding.” And how does the gospel start? “Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit.” This is what Isaiah foresees! He glimpsed this and, through Isaiah, the Lord gave us the promise of Christ, who comes with the Spirit of the Lord resting upon him. The gifts of the Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, and knowledge and fear of the Lord. Jesus shares the wisdom and respect for the Lord that the Spirit gives him: “I give you praise, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike.” This is not the only time in the gospels that Jesus speaks of the blessedness of being childlike. What He means is the openness and naïve trust with which children typically encounter the world. Jesus’s own openness to and trust in His Father have resulted in God’s grace and gifts of the Spirit.

    The knowledge that is given to Christ is, in part, the reciprocal nature of His own membership in the Trinity: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.” Far from being a prideful or arrogant claim (as the Chief Priests, scribes, and Pharisees might suggest), Christ is trying to share as plainly and truthfully as possible the nature of our Trinitarian God. He is unfolding the mysteries of our faith; mysteries, we must remember, that are integral to our salvation because these mysteries transform and perfect the Jewish tradition into Christianity. Everything must become Christocentric in order for his sacrifice to his Father to make sense to us, so that we can rightfully conform ourselves to the perfect human teacher bestowed upon us, who continues to grace us in the sacraments and throughout our lives.

    The Holy Trinity I (La Santisima Trinidad I), contemporary, Candelario Cervantez | Image from fineartamerica.com.

    The import of His revelation is underscored in the final verses from today’s reading: “Turning to the disciples in private he said, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’” There is a profound humility in Christ speaking about this moment in this way. He speaks deferentially to the Spirit and the Father, ascribing to the Father alone the timing and method of revealing His instrument of salvation to the world. Jesus Christ is truly remarkable for me in this moment: when the rest of us would be understandably puffed up with importance to be graced by the Spirit and to find out that we are the gatekeepers for humanity’s salvation, Christ instead offers a gracious and deferential comment to His Apostles. Blessed are you, He confirms. Not “I am one with God! Bow down and kiss my feet!” No, quite the opposite: it’s “how blessed you are to be hearing and seeing God’s unfolding revelation in the Christ Event.” (And, soon he’ll be washing their feet.) If we want an example of how base human nature is transformed by God against every fleshly instinct, here it is. “The baby shall play by the cobra’s den … and there shall be no harm or ruin.” And here our childlike Jesus Christ realizes His Kingship without succumbing to pride or power. 

    What can we do with such humility?? It seems like I can’t even breathe without thinking of myself. In moments when I read the scriptures and re-discover His perfection, I feel like I can never abase myself enough to be worthy of my Savior. It’s good that it’s Advent. I need time to contemplate my Lord, to remember who this man and God is, to remember that my understanding of the world is circumscribed by silly laws and rules that really have nothing to do with the kingdom God holds for us. The fact that Christ turns to His Apostles in this gospel moment – apostles who were flawed humans just like us – is our sign that He loves us as much as He loves His Father. It reminds me that God’s infinite love and forgiveness is the matrix that will transform all of creation, that it’s not about me, really, and the more I can remember that, perhaps the closer I can be to the Spirit of our Lord.

     

  • The Sadness of Possessions

    Monday and Tuesday in the 20th Week of Ordinary Time: Ezekiel 28:1-10, Matthew 19:16-30.

    The end of Chapter 19 in the Gospel of St. Matthew must really stick in the craw of those who believe in the so-called prosperity gospel. This predominantly evangelical belief system is a type of vending machine theology: if you strictly obey God’s commandments, you will be blessed with wealth, health, and power. Let’s dive into these passages to see what Jesus teaches us through the rich young man and why this might completely refute the prosperity gospel.

    ‘For he had great possessions’ (1894), George Frederic Watts | Creative Commons, courtesy the Tate Museum.

    This man approaches Jesus and asks, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” On the surface, this is a question that likely orbits within each of us as we contemplate our spiritual lives. We hear of the promise of eternal life many times from Jesus, and we’re Christian, so it follows that eternal life is really the goal here. But notice the transactional nature of the young man’s mindset: I do a good deed and get eternal life. He is looking to secure — to possess — eternal life. This should be our first clue that something is not right, as well as a reminder that we must be thoughtful in how we phrase our searchings, even silently in our hearts, truly asking for only what keeps us on the Way that is Christ.

    Jesus responds incisively, not to the man’s question but to his mindset: “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good.” Christ must gently correct and re-orient him because what the man calls “good” is drastically off-target. Like many, the man sees good and evil as adjectives that describe works we do, perhaps even thoughts that we have. Jesus has come to re-educate humanity that “good” is not an adjective or an abstract noun but a person. “God is good” might be an approbation but more deeply it is a statement of fact. Anything that exists as a good thing exists that way because God is being made manifest through it. God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the source and reality of all goodness. So, it’s almost nonsensical for the young man to ask Jesus “what good deed must I do” as if he is the one creating goodness in a deed. As I contemplated all of the verses that follow, I realized that Jesus’s answer is contained here in this first statement: if we can truly recognize that God is the only one who is good, then we will devote everything to this source of goodness and eventually achieve our unification with him (i.e., eternal life).

    Jesus then tells him, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” Jesus is effectively slowing the man down, taking him back several steps. He does not answer his question about how to “have eternal life” but instead answers how he can simply begin the path, to “enter into life.” The man is eager, but not aware of his own spiritual infancy. 

    The man expresses his eagerness by rushing forward, as if not hearing Jesus’s calm re-direction. He demands to know which commandments to keep. Interestingly, Jesus replies with the last six commandments that concern oneself and one’s neighbor but not with the first four that have to do with God. Why? I think that it’s helpful to remind ourselves that Jesus is telling him how to “enter into life,” which has much to do with orienting oneself in the manner God intends for us. Jesus meets the man on his own worldly turf. Perhaps he is leading him slowly to a realization.  

    The man claims that he is already on this path: “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?” Note, though, that his question again uses the language of possession. He wants to secure something, to have it, to own it.

    At this point, our Lord challenges the core of the man’s tainted mindset: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Like so many conversations with the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus speaks to the need for the Chosen People to go deeper than a surface adherence to rules. He urges them not just to a conversion of heart towards God, but also to a radical abandonment of their own worldly concerns as they let the goodness and truth of God infuse them and explode into the world as selfless charity. For this rich young man, as with many if not most of us, the rubber hits the road when it comes to wealth and possessions. 

    Christ and the Rich Young Ruler (1889), Heinrich Hofmann | Wikimedia Commons.

    But let’s not misunderstand Jesus. It’s not just letting go of wealth for the sake of renouncing earthly possessions. This, as we see in Buddhism, retains the desire to bring enlightenment to oneself, to possess it, to have that enlightenment as a personal trait. Jesus is much more radical than this and promises us so much more. The real Christian transformation is that you empty yourself, forget your own needs and desires, in order to be filled by something new that is fundamentally not you and can never be possessed by you. God, the ultimate source and reality of all goodness, is the One who can fill you, the One you constantly strive to get closer to, the One whose endless generosity you can share profligately about the world in charity.

    Note Christ’s last sentence: “Then come, follow me.” The man is not done when he sells his possessions and gives to the poor. No, he has just begun his glorious journey to God. And, with what must have seemed like astonishing directness to his listeners, Jesus points to Himself as God-on-earth, both a man who walks the way to the Father and the divine God who gifts humanity with the end of the reign of death.

    But the young man doesn’t seem to grasp even half of this. Psychologically, this message is devastating for him: “When the young man heard this word, he went away grieving, for he had many possessions” (NRSV translation). Indeed, for anyone who views their relationship to life as a to-do list, a wall awaiting plaques of accomplishment, or a book detailing many conquests, this message is a stark wake-up call. God does not want us to possess anything. He wishes for us to wipe our minds of the drive to own, to possess, to accomplish for ourselves. He wants us to replace this drive with the thirst to love Him and love others. True love of God, by which Christ means a love that orients our every waking moment, provides us with superhuman endurance, true peace and true happiness. Nothing we can possess in our world can compare with this.

    After 2,000 years of Christian monasticism and the ecclesiastic vow of poverty, this message isn’t exactly alien for us to hear. We’ve had some time to let it sink into our culture. But not the apostles! After the young man leaves, Jesus goes on to instruct His apostles: “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God.” The Jewish culture of the time absolutely associated wealth and prosperity with blessings from God (and here we notice an early version of the prosperity gospel). God may very well bestow prosperity upon people as a blessing — who am I to deny the wonderful and mysterious works of the Lord? But prosperity comes with a great cost as well (perhaps, then, it’s a curse or a trial?). Christ’s strong statements here speak to the dangers inherent in wealth. On the heels of the interaction with the rich young man, it’s clear that the dangers lie in seeing possessions as an end in themselves, in being sidetracked by the accumulation of things and wealth and thereby fostering a selfishness that is offensive to God. If one dies rich, chances are that one held onto wealth and possessions to the very end and did not truly convert to God. Thus, it is hard for such a person to enter the Kingdom.

    Our lectionary states, “When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, ‘Who then can be saved?’” Fr. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis translates this as “the disciples recoiled with fear” (Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, Volume 3, 185). He writes, “It is too little to say that they were ‘greatly astonished,’ because this verb refers to an upset in one’s rational capacity at confronting the unexpected. The context calls for something more visceral. … ‘To be panic-struck’ or ‘driven out of one’s senses’ is closer to the contextual meaning, since a clear element of fear is here present as the disciples suddenly see salvation itself hanging in the balance” (185-186). Their worldview was dominated by maintaining a national Jewish identity in the face of occupation by invaders; wealth signified power whereas poverty signified disgrace and being forsaken by God. Yet here is the Savior telling them that a rich man will find it hard to enter the Kingdom of God. Not only was salvation in the balance, their entire system of what signifies worthiness was being turned on its head.

    Despite the apostles’ astonishment, this is an ages-old pitfall. Some 600 years earlier, Ezekiel passes down a harsh warning, as heard in Tuesday’s first reading: “And yet you are a man, and not a god, however you may think yourself like a god … By your wisdom and your intelligence you have made riches for yourself; You have put gold and silver into your treasuries. By your great wisdom applied to your trading you have heaped up your riches; your heart has grown haughty from your riches.” The problem that God points out through Ezekiel is that riches corrupt a person’s heart and make that person imagine personal godliness. Many preachers and writers make pains to point out that there is nothing inherently wrong in wealth. While this might be true (although below I argue it is not), I think the point is overplayed. We are all-too-soothed by these words that let us off the hook from the condemnation of being attached to ourselves, this world, and our power within it. So, yes, gold is not the devil; it’s a shiny, inanimate metal and it has historically been put to good use to adorn holy and sacred things. Such adornment is meant to be a sign — one that falls far short of the true, transcendent glory of God, but something acknowledging that true wealth, honor, power, and glory belongs to the Creator.

    The Userer, ca. 1766-1774, after George van der Mijn (1721-1763) | Creative Commons, courtesy the British Museum. The poem under the title reads: “From Widows and from Orphans drain’d, / Old Gripus hugs the Store he’s gain’d — / Yet thinks his Money badly lent, / Unless he gets full Cent per Cent.”

    But wealth is inseparable from possession. The definition of wealth is an amassment of valuables. In other words, wealth cannot exist without it being possessed. The syllogism is simple: if wealth is by definition possession, and if possession is (by Jesus’s definition) an obstacle to unity with God, then wealth is an obstacle to unity with God. Is wealth really not evil in itself? I’d argue it is because it operates on the level of covetousness and personal gain that is contrary to God’s law.

    OK, what about gold and jewels, are they evil? Maybe not as an ornament, but as something that operates within a system of value and personal enrichment, then maybe that should give us pause. We can’t pretend that these “valuables” are just lying about the world and existing without an overwhelming human urge to use them for influence, power, authority, security, etc. (it’s called economics). Then let’s consider that when we hide valuable things from view, we commit an act of selfishness, distrust, and subterfuge. We don’t leave valuables out and about. Today, we don’t even use paper currency, much less gold and silver coinage. We use plastic cards hidden in wallets and bags, worthless in themselves, but carrying the weight of sometimes unimaginable power. These worthless cards and the stigma/badge of “creditworthiness” are manifestations of a world where wealth has taken on such importance that it defines our personal value. Your wealth determines your nutrition, safety, housing, education, and social status. What I’m getting at is that these inanimate things are no longer inanimate when they comprise our way of living in the world with one another. They become levers of power, ways of discrimination, and traps of self-absorption. So, I would argue, not only does “wealth” have a valence that weighs heavily on the side of evil, but so do “precious” things, money, credit, etc. They are evil because they are used to replace and fundamentally degrade the value of a human, of a person.¹

    But into this world enters Jesus Christ, patiently telling those who will listen that wealth and possessions have absolutely nothing to do with true value (personal or otherwise). Leiva-Merikakis puts this nicely: “God’s revelation of his deepest self by becoming poor in our sight means that the riches that belong to him by his nature as God are of a wholly different order from what the world ordinarily means by ‘riches.’ Therefore, for us to become ‘rich’ through Christ’s poverty means becoming rich as God is rich and not as the world and our fallen nature envision being rich” (188).

    So, in answer to the apostles’ “Who then can be saved?”, “Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.’ Let’s first note that St. Matthew records how Jesus’s “answer” begins with Him looking at them. At this point, after their panic-struck recoiling with fear about salvation and their worldview being turned on its head, this is less of a Q&A and more of a moment when the apostles have realized they are nothing and are psychologically adrift. They are not yet the heroes and martyrs as we conceive of them. By noting how Jesus first “looked at them,” St. Matthew guides us to imagine the calm, powerful gaze of the Savior and Master, stilling their fear, feeding them the truth. And this truth is an unblinking reiteration that people cannot “save” themselves through any kind of action or possession or quality. People must simply empty themselves and walk to God with an open heart ready to do his will. It is God who embraces us, who does the saving. 

    The Penitent Apostle Peter (1617-1618), Anthony van Dyck | Wikimedia Commons. I find it very heartening to think of the apostles as having very human frailty and flaws as they are portrayed in the gospels.

    Jesus reassures them that they, in their nothingness and psychological angst, will have an honored place by His side in heaven simply by being His apostles. He explains that all who give of themselves, their families, and their possessions for the sake of His name “will receive a hundred times more, and will inherit eternal life.” His message is clear: the order of things is reversed. Worldly wealth is not eternal, spiritual wealth. Amassing things for oneself decreases spiritual value while giving up what one has increases spiritual value. This is why he ends with “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.” The inversion of our worldly order must be firmly understood if we are to grasp Christ’s message.

    On a personal note, I’m no less susceptible to the psychological angst and panic than the apostles over this message. Apart from making alarming statements to my wife about the spiritual dangers of saving for retirement, I’m still struggling to find out how I can separate myself from attachments to money and possessions as I turn fully toward God. I think we all need prayers as we make this journey. 

     

    ¹ Lest you worry that this paragraph smacks too much of socialism, Marxism, or any other -ism, let me assure you that I hold these systems in as much contempt as capitalism (or patriotism!). In the end, they’re all Godless ideologies. They all see this world as the ultimate in importance. They all seek to give people a certain type of gain or wealth or value here in this world while alive, because (as the unspoken finale of each attests), there’s nothing else, nothing greater. They all operate in a mode where possession (of money, land, power, etc.) is the only meaningful mode they can imagine. How sad! And what an amazing and needed antidote Christianity, with all of its mystical transcendence, offers us. The Christian’s very first admission of faith is that something way greater than what we see or can possess — God — wants us to join Him in heaven. From day one, the Christian operates outside of ideologies of the world and joins himself or herself to a mystical reality beyond our understanding.

     

  • Who Are His Sheep?

    Monday and Tuesday the Fourth Week of Easter – Acts of the Apostles 11:1-26, John: 10:11-18, 22-30.

    Yesterday’s and today’s readings are in sequence, both the first reading and the gospel. I’d like to think about them together because this provides a fuller look at how the Church first spread beyond the Jewish enclaves around Jerusalem and into the Gentile communities of the Near East. They also show us how Jesus is simultaneously fulfilling the specific promise of Israel’s Messiah yet defining the community of “sheep” to be saved by criteria that are not restricted to a Jewish heritage.

    Good Shepherd, 5th-century mosaic from the tomb of Galla Placidia in Ravenna | image from flickr.com.

    Let’s start with the gospel readings where Jesus uses the image of the Good Shepherd to describe Himself. The first aspect of the good shepherd He points out is self-sacrifice: “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This is in contrast to the paid worker who abandons the sheep in tough times because he only works for money. The second aspect is a hard-to-describe quality of knowing: “I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.” How can we understand this? This type of knowing can only come from a few things: perhaps a long, close acquaintance such as one with a friend, family member, or co-worker with whom you interact every day; or another way to “know” someone comes through the bond of love and trust that transcends the physical aspects of the person. This second type of knowing we might see in a mother and child, forged through gestation, feeding, and care over years, present in their mental and physical attachments. Or we might see this in a husband and wife who have grown so close in love that they know what the other person is thinking, they anticipate the other person’s needs before they are spoken, they instinctively know when the other enters the room without having to look up. This is what I mean by a love and trust that transcends the physical aspects of a person — you don’t need to see them to feel their presence, you don’t even need to have them be present to hear them in your mind, how they might react to something. In this way, love and trust fuse people together in an altogether more-than-physical way. We might dare to call this way of knowing mystical because it belongs to the family of spiritual mystery that we encounter in the liturgy.

    Jesus is saying that He knows His sheep and they know Him in this way. More than that, this is the same way that He and the Father are in relationship. How incredible! I’d definitely use the term mystical once we understand that this is a sharing in the Personhood of the Trinity. I don’t want to lose track of the first way I identified above, the close acquaintance gained by repeated interaction. This is displayed in Jesus’s constant prayer to the Father throughout His life — whether in the desert, on the mountain, before meals and miracles, or simply in His solo time. This way of prayer is an essential element of our mystical “knowing” when we have a hard time seeing the physical presence of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus models for us the love and trust born of filial relationship as well as the prayer life that reinforces the companionship, love, and trust: these are our ways of knowing God.

    The message of the Good Shepherd would have meant something specific to His Jewish audience. The Word of God first used this language with Ezekiel (see Ezekiel chapter 34), and the full message was that God Himself will come to replace the bad shepherds (i.e., chief priests and leaders) of Israel: “my sheep have become food for all the wild animals, since there was no shepherd; and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep … I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out” (Ez 34:8,11). Thus, when Jesus says that He is the Good Shepherd, by invoking Ezekiel He is telling them that they have fallen down on the job of shepherding God’s people and that He Himself is God, here to do the work Himself.

    Initial M depicting the parable of the Good Shepherd from a French illustrated manuscript | Creative Commons, courtesy the Free Library of Philadelphia.

    What’s more, the Word of God tells Ezekiel that His sheep are more than just those living in Israel: “I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture” (Ez 34:13-14a). Here we see a different and broadened definition of God’s people than “descendants of Abraham and Jacob” or “house of David” or “of the twelve tribes.” In other words, the genetic heritage that grants the Jews the status of Chosen People is not equivalent to the group of people who will be saved (here called “my sheep”). I make this point not to diminish in any way the important status of the Chosen People, but to point out that the eschatological end God envisions for humanity is not restricted to the Chosen People. God reveals Himself as the great “I AM,” the only God, to the Chosen People so that they can nurture this truth over the millennia and become a shining light for all of the nations. As He tells Isaiah: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Is 49:6). Thus, Israel as a light to the nations, is there precisely so that salvation may reach beyond it, “to the end of the earth.”

    Jesus is the promised “light to the nations.” Remember, when he is presented in the Temple as a child, holy Simeon took him in his arms and declares Jesus to be, “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). Thus, we can see the trajectory of these various threads. When Ezekiel relates that God will feed his sheep “on the mountains of Israel,” he is referring to the spiritual wisdom and revelation of Judaism. Those sheep from outside of the Jewish nation will be brought to “the mountain heights of Israel” to feed on the good pasture of their spiritual wisdom. In this manner, Jesus glorifies Israel while being a revelation for Gentiles. He does not create a new religion but fulfills all of the prophecies and promises within Judaism: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Matt 5:17). He upholds Judaism while making way for the eschatological expansion of the faith to the rest of the world. So, yes, His ministry is primarily, overwhelmingly, focused on Jews, Jewish towns, and Jerusalem; His chosen twelve disciples stand as the chosen twelve tribes, and all of His Words and works are those that He seeded in the minds and mouths of the Jewish prophets over the millennia. But multiple times throughout the gospels we receive the message that the reign of God that He brings is open to non-Jews: the exorcism of the Canaanite woman’s daughter, healing of the Centurion’s servant, etc.

    The story of the Canaanite woman in Matthew, chapter 15 is especially interesting because some people use one of Jesus’s quotes to show that He only came for the Jews: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt 15:14). But that interpretation takes the quote out of context. This is actually His answer to his disciples who want Him to send the woman away — it’s a statement that reveals what they’re thinking and not a fulfillment of their request to dismiss her. In fact, after she shows perseverance in asking for His help, He commends her and grants her wish for her daughter. The lesson is clearly a contrast: the woman’s perseverance of faith stands out against constant skepticism and lack of acceptance from the Jews. Jesus makes abundantly clear that His saving work is open to all who have faith.

    That’s why we have to pay special attention to His words in yesterday’s gospel: “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Who are His sheep? “Other sheep that do not belong to this fold” may mean dispersed Jews in other lands, or — as we see fulfilled in the Acts of the Apostles — the “Greeks,” the Gentiles. Jesus establishes the fact that His sheep “know” him like He knows the Father, that they will “listen to my voice.” This spiritual, mystical knowing does not rely on genetic Jewish heritage. This is the knowledge that the Creator places in our souls at the moment of our creation. This is our response to God within us, cultivated as we listen to His call and by our prayers, our desire, our thirst.

    In today’s gospel, Jesus repeats this language and makes even more clear that His sheep are not simply those of Jewish heritage. He says to the Jews gathered around Him: “you do not believe, because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” So, not only are the sheep to be saved and brought into this “one flock” open beyond those of Jewish heritage, some Jews will actually be excluded from the flock. The Chosen People kept the flame of God’s revelation to humanity alive, but the sheep to be saved are those who respond to God with all their hearts, minds, and souls — a different set of people not determined by the status of Chosen People.

    I Am the Good Shepherd (contemporary), Jackson Studios | image from etsy.com.

    Once again, we hear the Word of God before He is incarnated as Jesus telling Ezekiel these same things hundreds of years earlier: “I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. 21 Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, 22 I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.” Thus, the Jews themselves will be sorted according to their acts and their hearts.

    This message was lost in the fervor of the Jews being astounded at Jesus’s claim that “The Father and I are one.” They want to stone Him right after He says this. And then, of course, this great “blasphemy” (aka truth!) is used as the rationale for His Crucifixion. Therefore, this message did not sink in right away for the first Jewish followers of Christ who made up the Apostolic Church. When evangelizing throughout the Near East, at first they went only to Jewish synagogues. Today’s first reading tells us that the disciples fleeing the persecutions in Jerusalem “went as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but Jews.” But some preached Jesus Christ to the “Greeks” in Antioch (meaning non-Jews, aka Gentiles). This is the first record of deliberate evangelization to non-Jews. The author writes: “The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.” What does it mean that “the hand of the Lord was with them”? Throughout the Bible, the hand of God signifies protection, blessing, and anointing. God tells Isaiah: “I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand” (Is 41:10b). Thus, those preaching to the Gentiles in Antioch are strengthened and protected by God in their efforts.

    So, when the church in Jerusalem hears of this unprecedented work and sends Barnabas to investigate, he “saw the grace of God, he rejoiced and encouraged them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart.” Let’s remember that Jesus promised, “I know mine and mine know me,” so Barnabas, filled with the Spirit, recognized that same Spirit of Christ alive in the work of the disciples preaching to the Gentiles. This mystical knowledge, so palpable at Pentecost, continues to pulsate through the early Church, calling the sheep who thirst for God, Jew and Gentile alike. 

    This is no small thing. As Peter tells us in the episode that yesterday’s first reading summarizes, “it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile” (Acts 10:28). But God provides Peter with a vision as he prays in which all of creation descends from heaven on a white sheet. It is a sign of the purification of Creation by Jesus’s great sacrifice. With Christ as the new Adam, Creation itself is re-sanctified and is no longer unclean. God’s voice tells Peter, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” The ripple effects of the Christ event in the fabric of history are making themselves felt in this revelation to Peter. 

    Peter Baptizing the Centurion Cornelius (1709), Francesco Trevisani | image from flickr.com.

    Guided by the Holy Spirit, Peter ministers to Cornelius the centurion and his household of Gentiles. Thanks to his vision, Peter is beginning to understand what Jesus was saying when he said, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” Cornelius tells him that he was praying at his house when an angel appeared and tells him that his prayers were answered and he should seek out Peter. This is a man who is spending time with God, who yearns for Him; a man who is one of the sheep. So, Peter admits, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35 but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10:34-35).

    Jesus promises his Apostles that the Holy Spirit will be sent to them after He ascends to heaven, and indeed this is what happens in the house of Cornelius: “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles” (Acts 10:44-45). This is another Pentecost moment, and here the Holy Spirit descends upon Gentiles! Even the grumbling Jewish members of the fledgling Church in Jerusalem are mollified when they hear that the Holy Spirit was present to the Gentiles in the same manner He came to them: 

    [Peter said]: “If then God gave them the same gift he gave to us
    when we came to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ,
    who was I to be able to hinder God?”
    When they heard this,
    they stopped objecting and glorified God, saying,
    “God has then granted life-giving repentance to the Gentiles too.”

    The last two days’ worth of readings presents to us the growth of the Church beyond the Jewish community within which Jesus Christ came and ministered. It shows that the Spirit didn’t “force” a growth outside of the Jewish communities (as some scholars argue) but that this was a Spirit-fueled unveiling of a promise given to the Jews by Ezekiel and then Jesus. This idea of the eschatological sheep in God’s flock being defined outside of the strict genetics of the Jewish race was always present in God’s teaching. Just like the Holy Spirit came to infuse the Apostles in the upper room with the grace, wisdom, and courage to start their ministry in Jerusalem, the Spirit came to expand this grace to include Gentiles.

    The growth of the Church unfurled precisely in the order promised by Christ, with the undeniable logic of the grain of wheat, dead to the earth but rising again in great bounty. No other gospel makes this as clear as the gospel of St. John, which is one of the reasons I find it so appealing. We find in the very first chapter, through the mouth of John the Baptist, that Jesus’s saving action would be for the benefit of the world, not just the Jewish nation: “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn 1:29). The first epistle from John also makes the scope of His mission crystal clear: “he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2).

    In my mind, the move of some theologians to reduce the mission of Jesus to only gathering the nation of Israel to fulfill the prophecies pertaining to the Jewish God is too limiting and deaf to the revelation of the Spirit after the Resurrection. It is of the same ilk as writings that attempt to distill some version of a historical Jesus from the Christianity that developed after Jesus. Historical underpinnings are very important, as is the deep spiritual Jewish formation of the culture within which Jesus was born. But an attempt to find a Christ “before” or “outside of” Christology simply denies the fullness of God’s entry into the stream of human history.

  • The Examined Self Before God

    The Examined Self Before God

    Monday the Second Week of Lent: Daniel 9:4b-10, Luke 6:36-38.

    Today’s readings call us to reflect on our sins. In the Book of Daniel, we are shown the model of a contrite heart for past sins. In the gospel of St. Luke, Jesus instructs us on how to avoid sins in the future. Now for many of us, thinking about sins is not the most captivating aspect of our religion (low attendance at Confession can attest to that), yet even the most casual reading of the Bible shows us how essential self-examination is.

    Perhaps we can better embrace the spirit of today’s readings if we bring to mind yesterday’s glorious Transfiguration reading from Matthew. When I put myself in the sandals of Peter, James, and John, and imagine witnessing the divine light shining from the face of our Lord, followed by the bright cloud of the Father instructing me to listen to him, I can also see myself falling prostrate on the ground. The purifying and incomprehensible divine light casts a shadow over my soul that “darkens and empties and annihilates it in its particular apprehensions and affections concerning both earthly and heavenly things,” in the words of St. John of the Cross (see the end of yesterday’s reflection for more context here).

    When my soul in its imperfect state encounters the divine light, I cannot help but notice its blemishes. It’s like a familiar shirt that seems fine until I wear it to a nice event in the sunshine — then, the stains and frayed seams jump out as obvious.

    How do we feel about the grubby shirt that is our soul? A bit embarrassed? That’s OK — let’s take heart from one of today’s patron saints, St. Catherine of Bologna (1413-1463): “It means little to wear a worn habit and walk with bowed head; to be truly humble one has to know how to bear humiliation. It is the touchstone of Christian discipleship.” Humiliation, embarrassment: both of these accept a public acknowledgment of a sin or mistake. It shouldn’t be too difficult for us to acknowledge our sins before God, in the privacy of our relationship with Him.

    The Adoration of the Golden Calf (L’Adoration du veau d’or), 1633-1634, Nicolas Poussin | Wikimedia Commons.

    Humiliation is something the Jews knew well at the time the Book of Daniel was written (~165 BC). During this period, Antiochus IV Epiphanes was the Greek ruler over Israel who brutally put down the revolt recorded in the Book of Maccabees. “He ordered his soldiers to cut down without mercy those whom they met and to slay those who took refuge in their houses. There was a massacre of young and old, a killing of women and children, a slaughter of virgins and infants. In the space of three days, eighty thousand were lost, forty thousand meeting a violent death, and the same number being sold into slavery” (2 Maccabees 5:11–14). Then he tried to force the remaining Jews to worship Zeus on pain of death.

    Rather than bemoan their conquered and downtrodden state, the Book of Daniel acknowledges the humiliation and takes spiritual responsibility: “O LORD, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers, for having sinned against you.” The message is not all shame and doom, however. God’s covenant with his people still stands and hope is always there: “But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!” The Book of Daniel is an apocalyptic writing and focuses on the coming day of the Lord and the ultimate vindication of the chosen people. (The writer of Daniel uses the famous phrase “Son of Man” for the messiah — one that Jesus will use in reference to himself throughout his ministry.) 

    What can we learn from this long passage acknowledging sins? We aren’t Israelites who broke their covenant by worshipping idols and ignoring God’s commandments. Or are we more like them than we think? Our idols may not be golden calves, and our worship of them may not include burnt offerings, but let’s consider our contemporary lives. American culture is known for a few things: nearly limitless choice (for food, for clothing, for entertainment, for jobs, for housing, etc.) and unconstrained appetite (for those same things). We don’t think twice about ordering something we don’t need from Amazon if the price seems good or buying that little impulse purchase right next to the cash register at the store.

    Our golden calf is ourselves and our offerings are conspicuous consumption. This has been true for a long time. Heck, Thorstein Veblen writes in the Theory of the Leisure Class in 1899 that “The quasi-peaceable gentleman of leisure, then, not only consumes of the staff of life beyond the minimum required for subsistence and physical efficiency, but his consumption also undergoes a specialization as regards the quality of the goods consumed. He consumes freely and of the best, in food, drink, narcotics, shelter, services, ornaments, apparel, weapons and accoutrements, amusements, amulets, and idols or divinities” (Chap 4: “Conspicuous Consumption, p.73).

    All of this is to say that we live in a society rooted in self, not in God. We participate in ways great and small. Too often we rationalize away the Word of God and try to fit it within our normal cycle of making money, saving money, spending money, getting things for ourselves, getting things for our mini-me (kids), etc. Granted, living in contemporary society and simultaneously living out the New Covenant is not easy apart from becoming a monk, but nonetheless we’re all called to be saints.

    Plus. that’s kind-of the point of Christianity. It was seriously hard (on pain of death) before it was sanctioned by Constantine and being Christian began to synchronize with the power of the state. This sent us down an arguably more difficult path of retaining our focus on a world beyond this one when the current world seemed to be achieving all we wanted. I digress.

    Acknowledging sins: is it worthwhile or does the reading from Daniel seem to take it a little too far? Let’s take some wisdom from one of our great Church Fathers, St. John Chrysostom, who writes: “If we have been neglectful to the present moment, let us proceed immediately to the work of destroying sin through confession and tears. … Unless you tell the magnitude of your debt, you do not experience the abundance of grace” (Homilies on Lazarus (388 AD), 4.4). Sounds like it’s worth it.

    Chrysostom’s comment about confession and tears (i.e., contrition) “destroying sin” is echoed by several other Church Fathers. Tertullian writes his treatise Repentance in 203 AD and makes clear this connection: “of confession is repentance born, and by repentance is God appeased. … by its own pronouncement against the sinner, [confession may] stand in place of God’s indignation … In so far as you do not spare yourself, the more, believe me, will God spare you!” This affirms that God wants us to convert to Him wholly, and the more work we do in confessing sins and purifying our own souls, the less God will have to do later (perhaps in Purgatory?).

    So here we get to the reason we’re confessing sins to God. Tertullian and Chrysostom are doing some arithmetic: if we have a bank of sins, we can confess and be contrite while here on earth to destroy some or most (maybe even all?) of this bank of sins … while of course trying not to commit more of them. Otherwise, we meet God after this life with a big bank of sins that He must deal with, not something we want. To use our earlier analogy, will we present ourselves to God in a grubby, stained shirt or will we scrub and iron that shirt the best we can before we meet Him?

    Saint Francis in Ecstasy (1600s), Italian (Neapolitan) School | Creative Commons, courtesy Guernsey Museum & Art Gallery/ArtUK.

    The reasoning presented by Tertullian and Chrysostom we might call “negative reasoning” in that we are encouraged to do something good to avoid something bad (God’s reaction to our huge bank of sins). Christ presents us with “positive reasoning” in today’s gospel reading. While he is referring to avoiding future sins instead of confessing and repenting for past sins, his reasoning applies to both.

    Christ’s message is that we are active participants in our own salvation in how we respond to God’s call and take on God’s commandments. He says, “Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you.” In other words, live by God’s law and you will continue to live with God for eternity; carry divine love in your heart as you live, work, and act with other people, and divine love will be given to you for eternity.

    This reciprocation is a refrain that Jesus repeats throughout his ministry. The Lord’s Prayer uses nearly the same formulation: “forgive us our trespasses, as [you see us forgiving others].” How extraordinary — we seem to be hearing that we, in effect, have the power to save ourselves because God will mirror whatever we do. But let’s avoid this simplification of the message (and heresy) and dig a little deeper. 

    Jesus wants us to so fully embrace the divine life offered to us that we transcend the letter of the law to inhabit the spirit of the law. The readings last week showed us several times how Jesus exhorts us to surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and to “be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (see The Difficult New Covenant of Love). What changed from the time of Daniel in the old covenant is that Jesus offers humanity a real taste of the Kingdom here on earth and is the true gateway to the eternal Kingdom. That’s why we must transcend the letter of the law, which ruled the Israelite understanding of God’s relationship, and more fully let the Spirit inhabit us.

    Since we now have the liturgy that gives us true communion with God, we have the opportunity to carry our godliness into every aspect of our lives in a way that was never available before Christ. It is this same generosity of Christ that speaks today when he says that an “overflowing measure” will be measured out to us if we live in the New Covenant. This new Way (earliest Christians referred to themselves as followers “of the Way,” cf. Acts 9:1-2) requires more than the old covenants.

    To inhabit the spirit of the law (and let the Spirit inhabit us), we must not carry the spirit of condemnation and judgement, we must forgive and give. Again, the big difference is that we are sanctified by the Spirit in the liturgy and sacraments; our sanctified lives puts us in intimate communion with God. That means that when we sin we turn our backs on God, the God dwelling within us who we just sullied with sin. We must both confess/repent for past sins and keep from future sins because we are already “on the Way” to union with God. We already have the Spirit dwelling within us and acting in our lives. Our union with God’s will by the way we act confirms our covenant with Him and therein his promise to reciprocate in the life to come.

    To live a fully human life means to be elevated and transformed by God, to strive for perfection in spirit and action as we unite ourselves with Him. The ultimate reason for Christians to live like this is not a selfish guarantee of eternal life for that person we think we are (as we worship at the altar of self), but because we want to be with Him, to leave these limited “selves” and join the heavenly host. That’s exactly the “overflowing measure” promised to us.

  • The Transfiguration Reveals Truth “According to His Own Design”

    The Transfiguration Reveals Truth “According to His Own Design”

    Second Sunday in Lent, The Transfiguration of Christ: Genesis 12:1-4a, 2 Timothy 1:8b-10, Matthew 17:1-9.

    Today we hear of the Lord’s glorious Transfiguration, set up wonderfully by yesterday’s readings on covenants (see The Difficult New Covenant of Love). There are many signs that point to the New Covenant, including the Annunciation, the Lord’s Baptism, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, and of course the Resurrection. But the Transfiguration stands out as a pivotal moment that invokes the old covenants in the form of Moses and Elijah while the Father presents his blessed Son as a gift with the command to “listen to him.” We encounter all of the elements of the covenant as a pact with God where his gift and our commitment to him are both present.

    The first reading from Genesis relates the Abrahamic Covenant where God asks for great faithfulness in return for his blessing. He commands: “Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.” We might call this blind faith, actually. Abraham must leave everything — his father’s inheritance, all of his relatives and friends — to go to parts unknown (to be revealed later!). Of course, after the test of faith where he was asked to sacrifice his son Isaac, maybe he was getting used to these demands of faithfulness. Whatever the case, we hear that “Abram went as the LORD directed him.” It’s a short sentence but displays the absolute trust that Abram places in God. (Hence the very appropriate Responsorial Psalm 33, Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you.)

    Abraham’s Journey from Ur to Canaan (Ábrahám kiköltözése), 1850, József Molnár | Wikimedia Commons, artwork housed in Szépművészeti Múzeum – Magyar Nemzeti Galéria, Hungary.

    The Abrahamic Covenant sets the stage for all of God’s covenants: we are asked to act in faith based on what we do not know or see. We can’t do this unless we trust God completely.

    In the second reading, St. Paul underscores this aspect of our relationship with God as he urges his flock to “Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” We might think we lack that strength ourselves, but no matter, the strength actually comes from God, another point of trust. This trust is made possible thanks to Abraham and the entire tradition to the point of Christ. Paul writes, “He saved us and called us to a holy life,” noting that God’s covenants have saved the nation time and again, and that, in return, they have been called to a holy life. Lest his readers think they earned their holiness, much less their salvation, he corrects them: “not according to our works but according to his own design.”

    And here we have a great and humbling admission: “according to his own design.” As humans, relinquishing power over our destiny, trajectory, or career (to use modern terms) is something we have a hard time accepting. Especially in “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” USA. It’s part of our national fabric to be a “self-made man.” Yet how far from our faith could we possibly get when we think this way? Was Abraham a self-made man? Moses? Elijah? Christ?? Of course not. These greatest of figures in history were not only made by God, but directed, commanded, steered, and loved by Him. Their greatness lay in their acceptance of his dominion and willingness to trust, have faith, and do his will.

    We have to actively work to change our unconscious bias for being self-made, for controlling our own destiny. Thank God that we have thousands of years of his promises kept, miracles done, and covenants upheld. These must give us great comfort; they display that he does indeed have “his own design” and it works best if we don’t try to know it but rather simply trust it.

    The greatest of You-deserve-our-trust signs is Jesus Christ himself. Today’s account of the Transfiguration of Christ in the gospel of St. Matthew is almost understated in regards to the pure majesty and import of the New Covenant’s revelation. Matthew gets right to the point: Jesus and his chosen three go up the mountain, “And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.” 

    The Transfiguration of the Lord (mosaic, Church of the Transfiguration, Mount Tabor, Israel), 1924, Umberto Noni | Wikimedia Commons. The caption is Latin for “And he was transfigured before them.”

    There was one other encounter with God that changed a man’s appearance: Moses on Mt. Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments. These two mountain encounters with God are worth comparing. Matthew’s report that Jesus’s face shone like the sun is important to contrast to the interplay of light on the faces at Mt. Sinai. The glorious face needed to be hidden from Moses; The Lord tells him “you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live….you shall see my back; but my face shall not be seen” (Ex 33:20, 23). When he comes down from the mountain, “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (Ex 34:29b), and even this reflected glory makes the Israelites afraid. Moses has to wear a veil over his face when he talks to them so that they can overcome their fear and awe.

    Yet Jesus does not reflect God’s light, he emanates it. He is such a perfect, non-conflicting union of the human and the divine that the divine light that would kill humans merges perfectly with him; more: he, in fact, is the source of illumination.

    What is the significance of his clothes? He purifies these garments made by human hands, turning them white. This is a sign that, in him, humans can be purified and divinized as well.

    Matthew tells us next, “behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, conversing with him.” Moses is the ultimate representative of the law, and Elijah is the ultimate representative of the prophets. Christ is the fulfillment of both the law and the prophets. Here he stands talking with the greatest of those who represent the law and the prophets, and Peter, for one, is thrilled. Here are two of the greatest Jewish religious figures and heroes, conversing with his own teacher, who glows with some sort of mysterious providence that they’ve never seen before. He asks Jesus if he should build tents for each of them. This is easy to misinterpret, but remember that Moses (and all of Israel before the Temple of Solomon was built) made a tent for God to dwell with them. Peter’s tents are a Biblically-sound suggestion for these celestial beings to remain with them, as if a new era has started where the new heavenly Jewish superheroes will help the nation reach new heights.

    But he’s clearly missed the point, and God the Father interrupts him mid-request. Note how differently God appears here on Mt. Tabor compared to Mt. Sinai. On Mt. Sinai:

    On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled. Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder (Ex 19:16-19).

    The Giving of the Law, 1936, unknown artist | Creative Commons.

    Thunder, lightning, a thick cloud, smoke, fire, violent shaking and trumpet blasts. Truly frightening phenomena. Add to this God’s command to Moses: “warn the people not to break through to the Lord to look; otherwise many of them will perish.” The Lord is hidden from view, darkness and opacity characterize His appearance, and even Moses must only converse with his back, not his face.

    Contrast this with today’s reading: “While [Peter] was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud cast a shadow over them, then from the cloud came a voice…” What an interesting description of light that St. Matthew gives us! The cloud is bright, not dark, akin to the glow we see on the face of Christ. And how can we explain that a source of brightness casts a shadow, since shadows are only cast when a greater source of light is behind them? The divine cloud is surely the brightest thing in the sky.

    For one point of reference, I am reminded of St. John of the Cross and his contemplations in The Dark Night of the Soul: “The more simply and purely the divine light strikes the soul, the more it darkens and empties and annihilates it in its particular apprehensions and affections concerning both earthly and heavenly things” (Book 2, 8.2(2)). This seems to be precisely what is happening — the shadow cast over them is the darkness that strikes the soul by the purifying and incomprehensible divine light.

    Indeed, “they fell prostrate and were very much afraid,” despite the fact that they are in the light and there are no terrible phenomena like we see on Mt. Sinai. Their minds are also cleared of the “particular apprehensions and affections concerning both earthly and heavenly things” as described by St. John of the Cross — there is no more discussion of tents.

    God delivers the New Covenant: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” His gift: his Son. His command: listen to him. Christ is both sides of the covenant, the gift and our requirement. This seemingly simple covenant, taking up so few words compared to those in the Old Testament, is unapproachably dense in its profundity.

    How can we comprehend the gift of God Himself, joined to humanity in our New Covenant? This unlikely and undeserved gift simply requires us to “listen to him.” Like an overly-dense star ready to become a supernova, Christ is poised for the Resurrection, when the love of the Trinity will be poured out on humanity. But the Resurrection will only come after his example of self-giving love is shared with us in the form of the Cross. Listening to him will, in fact, require a radical shift in our lives, a willingness to accept the way of the cross.

    Transfiguration of Jesus (icon), 1408, Theophanes the Greek | Wikimedia Commons. Artwork from Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Pereslavl-Zalessky.

    But the truth of the Transfiguration is most beautifully portrayed in Jesus’s words: “Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Rise, and do not be afraid.’ And when the disciples raised their eyes, they saw no one else but Jesus alone.” Despite the difficulties we will encounter truly listening to him and taking up our crosses, Jesus the man, the friend, the teacher, is there for us in person, giving us his generous love. He touches them with tenderness, encouraging them not to be afraid of the reaction of their souls to the divinity they are in contact with. When they raise their eyes like docile sheep, they see only the Good Shepherd, who is also the sacrificial lamb.

    The first test of this New Covenant will be given to Peter, James and John when he charges them: “Do not tell the vision to anyone until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.” They must listen to him as God commanded, although every fiber of their being must have been straining to share the Good News, electrons excited out of their shells with the potential of the divine energy waiting to erupt into the world. But only when the Resurrection is accomplished will the world be ready to comprehend that God Himself walked among us, that he was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets.

  • Fasting for What?

    Fasting for What?

    Friday after Ash Wednesday: Isaiah 58:1-9a, Matthew 9:14-15

    In today’s readings, Isaiah takes on the custom of fasting head-on. Then, in the gospel reading, John the Baptist’s disciples challenge Christ on fasting, but he uses it as a chance to reveal his own nature and thereby reflect on the entire purpose of fasting. The question of sincerity is at stake in both readings.

    Isaiah is an unrelenting prophet. He delivers vividly clear images of Christ who will come, but also pulls no punches when it comes to calling out the unfaithfulness of his people. In today’s reading, he points out the hypocritical self-righteousness of the Jews:

    They seek me day after day,
    and desire to know my ways,
    Like a nation that has done what is just
    and not abandoned the law of their God;
    They ask me to declare what is due them
    pleased to gain access to God

    Jews Mourning in a Synagogue, 1906, William Rothenstein | Creative Commons, courtesy Tate Museum.

    Yes, as if they had done what is just, they want what is due to them. Oh, the arrogance. The question they ask is “why do we fast and you take no notice of it?” Isaiah schools them. He points out that while they put on the appearance of fasting (sackcloth and ashes), their deeds display that they aren’t living the fast. Much like the Christ who will come, Isaiah wants to distinguish living the letter of the law from living the spirit of the law. Isaiah tells them what they should be doing while fasting (apart from abstaining from foods):

    releasing those bound unjustly,
    untying the thongs of the yoke;
    Setting free the oppressed,
    breaking every yoke;
    Sharing your bread with the hungry,
    sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
    Clothing the naked when you see them,

    Jesus will emphasize these same points in his ministry. We can call them acts of charity. Many of us consider fasting mainly an act of deprivation, but Isaiah reminds us that the act of depriving ourselves of food is simply the first step — sharpening our senses, waking us up from the complacency of being well-fed — so that we can offer ourselves more fully to God by service to one another.

    But if we’re too absorbed in ourselves when we fast, all we think about is our hunger and discomfort. Alternatively, if we’re too concerned with showing others that we abide by the law, we look mournful and disheveled in order to broadcast our efforts to humble ourselves in front of God. Both of these pitfalls miss the entire point of fasting, which is the spirit of fully offering ourselves to God.

    Isaiah is essentially asking his people, “Are you sincere in your faith?” Following God’s precepts is a whole-person effort, and God knows if we are sincere. There’s an old saying, “Smith went to Mass every Sunday, but went to hell for what he did on Monday.” The idea, of course, is that simply going through the motions is not what God asks of us.

    So what about duty? Where does our obligation lie? Isaiah (and later, Jesus) is clear that our obligation is not to the rituals but to the spirit that the rituals are meant to bring us into. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him” (2087). Belief, faith, bearing witness (through testimony and good acts).

    An interesting acceleration of these questions occurs in Matthew’s gospel today. The disciples of John the Baptist, who were by all accounts faithful in spirit as well as in the letter of the law, ask Jesus why his disciples weren’t fasting. Jesus uses this opportunity to talk not about fasting, but about his own divine nature. Like Isaiah, he presses the people about their sincerity, only this time in a more immediate way.

    Jesus says, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?” This image of Jesus as the groom and the Church as his mystical bride will be developed theologically in the years to come. More germane to our discussion, Jesus is gently telling John the Baptist’s disciples (who, we must remember, already heard from John that Jesus is the Messiah) that God is in their midst. If the goal of fasting is to attest to God in our bodies and our spirits, in a desire to be close to Him, then what place does it have when he’s already with you? 

    It’s like standing next to your father and shouting, “Oh, if my father was only here! I wish to be near my father!” It’s ridiculous. And here Jesus pushes on the sincerity of these questioners’ practice of fasting at that moment in time. If they sincerely desire unity with God, why are they fasting in front of him as if he was not present? Or is their fasting yet again simply a ritual that they stubbornly hold onto? 

    Our faith demands that we bring our entire beings, including our spirit and our intellect, to bear on this world and the next. If we fast without acting in God’s love, we are not living out our faith. If we prioritize the niggly details of our fast over the presence of God Himself, then we are blindly following ritual and not recognizing the Spirit at work.

    By being sincere in our fast — focusing on being close to God, doing his will — we can avoid these mistakes and begin to recognize when and where He is with us.