Tag: St. Paul

Seeing with the Light of the Lord

Fourth Sunday in Lent: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41.

Today’s readings reveal to us how differently from us that the Lord sees, and how Jesus came to reveal the blindness in us and reverse it through himself. The dialectic of light vs. darkness is another way to understand good and evil, and allows us to examine our own senses in the process. Living “in the light,” we are told, is more a matter of the heart than sight.

In the first reading, the Lord sends Samuel to Bethlehem to anoint the new king he has chosen from among Jesse’s eight sons. He warns Samuel, “Do not judge from his appearance or from his lofty stature, because I have rejected [these ones].” God has more to say about seeing and judging, which we might call discernment: “Not as man sees does God see, because man sees the appearance but the LORD looks into the heart.” So we receive an important message, that God peers into the very hearts of people when he “looks,” something that we are unable to do. We require God’s help when it comes to true discernment.

Today’s passage also gives us many ways in which David prefigures Jesus. In scripture, we often encounter the “house of David” and the “Tree of Jesse” from which Jesus comes. It’s fascinating to dwell on today’s verses where God has chosen David. As we listen to the Word of God, who will be born to Mary in Bethlehem, who will be the Good Shepherd for the world, it’s interesting to hear that Jesse dwells in Bethlehem and David is out tending the sheep when the seven other sons are presented to Samuel for potential anointing. The Word is implanting prophecy about His eventual arrival. In this way, David and the lineage of Jesse are a sign of the greater thing to come.

Root of Jesse icon, provenance unknown | Creative Commons, courtesy iconreader.wordpress.com. In Russian icons this is also known as the Tree of Jesse. Its inspiration comes from Isaiah: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots” (Is 11:1). St. Ambrose of Milan writes: “The root is the household of the Jews, the rod is Mary, the Flower of Mary is Christ. She is rightly called a rod, for she is of the royal lineage, of the house and family of David. Her Flower is Christ, Who destroyed the stench of worldly pollution and poured out the fragrance of eternal life. As He Himself said, ‘I am a flower of the plain, a lily of the valleys.’”

Transitioning to the second reading, I am always struck at how the Word of God works through St. Paul in marvelous ways. Remember that Paul never met Christ before his death; he became an Apostle through the Risen Christ appearing to him. And what an Apostle! We have inherited so much knowledge, encouragement, and theological understanding from him.

His conversion to Christ is a great example of what we shall see in the gospel reading: the light of Christ opens his eyes. He was spiritually blind and this blindness was rendered literally for him. We are told, “Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:8-9). There is a sense of penance here, where Saul, on his way to becoming St. Paul, must go into the desert to fast and contemplate (like we do in Lent).

But this is just the beginning for him, as he will soon pick up his cross and follow Christ in both suffering and spreading the message of salvation. The disciple Ananias is hesitant to cure his blindness as Christ bids him, but Christ tells him, “he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16). Oh, the penance will continue! To whom much is given, much will be required (Lk 12:48), says the Lord. At Ananias’s touch, the blindness falls from his eyes “like scales,” he is baptized, and he is on his new path.

In today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, he must have been thinking of his own experience when he writes, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.” Note that he doesn’t say, you were once in darkness, but that they were darkness and now are light. He was, in fact, “darkness” in both spiritual sight and deed since he physically persecuted disciples of Christ before his own conversion. Thus Paul gives us another understanding of darkness and light not just being aspects of sight (either physical or spiritual), but also ways of being.

He continues, “Live as children of light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness.” Note how he conceives of light as “producing” goodness, not just revealing it. And how darkness produces fruitless works. We see Paul building the Church, providing instruction for fledgling communities of those baptized in Christ. Through their Baptism, Christ has opened their eyes to spiritual light, and now Paul is deepening their understanding of that light. It is a light, he says, that is active and productive in the world. This is the Holy Spirit working through the Church, part and parcel of a Baptism in Christ, who is the gateway to the divine essence, an essence that continually creates goodness in the world.

Conversion on the Way to Damascus (1600-1601), Caravaggio | Wikimedia Commons. There is much to say about this, one of Caravaggio’s masterpieces, from the striking use of light to the opening of St. Paul at the same time of blinding him, but let’s contemplate on what Caravaggio might be saying about the person Saul was at that point by giving us such a magnificent horse’s ass to look at!

This is a light that doesn’t just reveal truth but transforms the person. Today’s gospel from St. John is a masterpiece of depicting this revelation in the curing of the blind man. This morning, Bishop Robert Barron presents a great exposition of the gospel reading in his live-streamed daily mass and mentions how St. John’s writing is akin to icon writing, where you can look at every detail in an icon and see how rich it is in symbolism and tells another aspect of the story.

The first detail to note is that the man is blind from birth — not from cataracts or disease, but fundamentally blind since he came into the world. Why is this important? St. Augustine tells us: “that blind man is the human race; for this blindness had place in the first man, through sin, from whom we all draw our origin, not only in respect of death, but also of unrighteousness. For if unbelief is blindness…” (Tractate 44 on John 9, 1). Recall God telling Samuel “not as man sees does God see,” and here we are given a story about how man (in general) cannot see.

Christ passes by this man, but when his disciples fruitlessly question who is at fault for the man’s blindness, he stops. He says, “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” Again, this clues us in to the universal application of the story to all of mankind. Jesus adds, “We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. … While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Jesus speaks here of the irresistible nature of the Spirit of the Lord, active in the world. He is compelled, he must do the works of God while here on earth. To that end, he sets about healing the blind man. He is not asked to do this, he does it gratuitously.

As a child, I always wondered about this next bit of the gospel. With other miracles, we hear Jesus say, “your faith has healed you,” or someone is healed just by touching the hem of his garment. But here we see something that seems like a magician’s ritual: “he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva, and smeared the clay on his eyes.” Is this necessary? How is spitting and making clay related to Christ’s mission on earth?

Nothing Jesus does is meaningless, and he certainly doesn’t need obscure rituals to heal people. So let’s examine this act and what it signifies. St. Augustine tells us plainly, “The Word is as it were the spittle, the Flesh is the earth” (Sermon 85 on the New Testament [CXXXV. Ben.], 1). Just as “the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground,” (Gen 2:7), we see Christ initiate a similar act of creation using the dust on the ground. This act of (re-)creation for humanity comes in the form of the uniting of the Word (his spittle) and humanity (the earth); in other words, Jesus Himself is the clay that is the unity of the river of life (spittle) and the earth. Jesus spreads Himself on the eyes of the blind man.

And Christ emphasizes the great mystical unity and energy that is the Trinity by telling him, “Go wash in the Pool of Siloam.” John helpfully tells us, “which means Sent,” so we can connect the dots. First, washing in the pool represents Baptism. What is the Baptism Christ offers us? St. John the Baptist tells us, “he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Lk 3:16). So, Christ is pointing to the work of the Holy Spirit in this baptism in the Pool of Siloam.

Second, the pool’s name means “Sent,” and Jesus has just said, “We have to do the works of the one who sent me.” Thus, the entire affair is done under the auspices of God the Father, who has sent Christ and sends the Holy Spirit. The life-giving water of the Holy Trinity, the overflowing love that characterizes the essence of our Three-in-One God, is the action that grants sight to the man blind from birth.

Healing of the Blind Man from Birth, unknown provenance | Creative Commons, courtesy johnsanidopoulos.com.

Let’s think more about this pool named Sent. After the man is cured of his blindness, he is asked many times by his neighbors and the Pharisees how this came about. His answer is simple: “He put clay on my eyes, and I washed, and now I can see.” But the more he is interrogated, the more he must contemplate this action and the more he must be the light (to recall the second reading from St. Paul). This man finally takes on the role of teacher to the Pharisees, a startling reversal for one who was a beggar:

“This is what is so amazing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if one is devout and does his will, he listens to him. It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”

He answers them with the ineffable logic of the truth and the light. And so this man sets the stage for several millennia of Christians who — once they accept Baptism and the light offered by Christ — answer skeptics with clear logic. From St. Augustine through the medieval scholastics like St. Thomas Aquinas to contemporary popes, we hear similar explanations as they evangelize in the light of Christ.

And so we can see how the man himself is sent from the pool by God, carrying a new message for the world. All of us who are baptized Christians both receive his mercy and love have been sent by God to give his mercy and love to the world.

This inevitably means that we will be rejected by those living in darkness. Christ finds the man after the Pharisees kick him out of the temple and reveals his true nature to him. He tells him, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind.” Here we find the double-edged sword that is the Truth: it not only saves us from spiritual blindness, but it condemns those who cling to their flawed human “sight.” God’s plan is to unite us to Him, and those who choose darkness over the light will be condemned to live in perpetual blindness.

The Old Guitarist (1903-1904), Pablo Picasso | Wikimedia Commons. Picasso painted this during his Blue Period, a time of depression and desolation after his good friend committed suicide. We see a resignation to death in this old, blind guitarist, clinging to life in the form of his guitar. When seen in the light of today’s gospel, we might see in this the blind clinging to their earthly concerns and ways of knowing, pushing away the light offered by Christ and soon to be condemned to dwell for all eternity in that darkness unless they accept Christ.

This brings me back to St. Paul, who lived his life being sent by the Lord, being rejected by those in darkness. Yet he never failed in passing along this great impetus of being sent — his evangelization aimed to encourage others in spreading the faith, living the faith, being active, not stagnant. As he tells us today, “now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.”

March 22, 2020
If You Knew the Gift!

Third Sunday in Lent: Exodus 17:3-7, Romans 5:1-2, 5-8, John 4:5-42.

Today’s readings map the importance of water not just as a lifeforce for our bodies, but as a symbol of the spiritual nourishment provided by God. We are given two seminal scriptural stories: Moses striking the rock at Massah and Meribah to let forth water and Jesus revealing his gift of “living water” to the Samaritan woman at the well. Both episodes underscore the way our bodily and spiritual needs intertwine in our faith.

The first question we might ask is, why water? It’s so mundane. Yes, we rely on it to live, our bodies consist mostly of water, but why would it be associated with holiness? Why is it used for baptism in Christ?

The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1830-1832), Katsushika Hokusai | Wikimedia Commons.

Our early Church Father Tertullian (c.155 AD – c.240 AD) speaks movingly about the fact that water was present early in creation. In his treatise, On Baptism, he recalls the first sentence from the Book of Genesis, where the earth is a formless void and “the Spirit of the Lord was hovering over the waters.” Tertullian writes:

“The first thing, O man, which you have to venerate, is the age of the waters in that their substance is ancient; the second, their dignity, in that they were the seat of the Divine Spirit, more pleasing to Him, no doubt, than all the other than existing elements. For the darkness was total thus far, shapeless, without the ornament of stars; and the abyss gloomy; and the earth unfurnished; and the heaven unwrought: water alone — always a perfect, gladsome, simple material substance, pure in itself — supplied a worthy vehicle to God. What of the fact that waters were in some way the regulating powers by which the disposition of the world thenceforward was constituted by God?”

Thus, Tertullian demonstrates how water is ancient, dignified, pleasing to the Holy Spirit, pure, and was instrumental for God when forming the rest of Creation. Due to this intimate relationship with the Spirit, all waters, he says, “attain the sacramental power of sanctification; for the Spirit immediately supervenes from the heavens, and rests over the waters, sanctifying them from Himself.” And just as water washes the dirt from our skin, it washes the spiritual stain of sin from our souls.

Water figures mightily in the Exodus story. It is the saving agent for the Israelites and the humbling force against Pharaoh’s army when God parts the sea as Moses raises his staff. And in today’s reading, we hear of the famous place with a double name, Massah and Meribah, which is invoked every day in the Liturgy of the Hours with the invitatory from Psalm 95. “The place was called Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the LORD, saying, ‘Is the LORD in our midst or not?’” God has already delivered them from the hands of Pharaoh, he has given them manna and quail to eat, and so their doubt displeases him so much that he declares the entire generation will have to wander the desert for 40 years and only the next generation will see the promised land.

Moses Striking the Rock (1596), Abraham Bloemaert | Wikimedia Commons. I quite like this interpretation of the scene at Massah and Meribah because it displays carousing, clueless Israelites who are focused on their material needs and bodies. Meanwhile, Moses strikes the rock in the background, imploring them to pay attention to the miracles God is working in their midst. You can sense his frustration with the unfocused and unfaithful tribe he is leading.

The passage opens with an important statement that we should not overlook. It reads, “In those days, in their thirst for water, the people grumbled against Moses …” Thirst for water is answered by God, and is forever associated with faith, or lack of faith. When they thirst for water, they are also thirsting for reassurance, for deliverance. Faith in God is what will bring them both of these, and because they grumble and revolt against Moses instead of staying strong in faith, God makes them an example for the rest of our salvation history. He delivers water to us, but we must wait 1,500 years before Christ makes it clear what type of water God provides.

The second reading from St. Paul to the Romans contains a crucial phrase that connects Massah and Meribah to the Samaritan Woman at the Well. Referring to Christ’s death and Resurrection, St. Paul writes, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” All three Persons of the Trinity are present in this concise statement, and the verb is “pour.” God’s unfathomable love is being poured into our hearts. Here we get to the core of what Jesus will refer to as “living water.”

Before diving into the gospel reading, let’s think about wells for a moment. Wells are our way of digging deep for the water God has planted in the earth in the form of natural springs. We are reaching out to God’s providence when we dig wells. We are displaying a primordial faith in our Creator who provides for us. Also, we dig wells when we want to settle in a place for a period of time. Wells, therefore, represent a stable relationship between ourselves and the wonders of Creation that God has given to help support us.

In his incredible book Wellspring of Worship, Jean Corbon, OP, explores the fundamental symbolism of water as he describes the mystical wellspring of worship that is the liturgy. He writes:

“Men thirst and look for water wherever they think they will find it. As they wander without any horizon in sight and no way of escape, they dig a well each time they pitch their tent. … Nor does he sleep who placed in the human soul both the thirst and the expectation. Indeed, he is the first to thirst and set out in search of us, to the point of joining us beside our pathetic wells.”

Corbon paints a picture of dependence on the part of humanity and something of a tavern owner in God (to borrow one of my favorite images of God from Simon Tugwell, OP). God the tavern keeper, offering us the most satisfying drink, has planted the thirst in us and is also the one who fulfills the thirst.

As we see at Massah and Meribah, thirst is physical and spiritual. The Catechism of the Catholic Church affirms this: “Whether we realize it or not, prayer is the encounter of God’s thirst with ours. God thirsts that we may thirst for him” (2560). Thirst, therefore, defines our mutual relationship with God. And thirst is the thing that brings Jesus and the Samaritan woman together at the well in the noonday heat.

Thirst (2011), Sigalit Landau | Creative Commons. This striking sculpture by Israeli artist Sigalit Landau depicts male and female forms in poses that might be supplication, physical effort, strain, or resignation upon a rock. The rock suggests Massah and Meribah (and there is an inscription in Hebrew on the back of the rock for which I wish I knew the translation). The two tones of marble suggest a meeting of humanity and God. The sculpture, carved in two gigantic chunks of Rosa Portugalo and Calacatta Gold marble, rests at the Elma hotel in Zichron Yaakov, Israel.

Note, in fact, who asks for water first in our gospel reading: it is Jesus. The Lord thirsts for us — what a remarkable thing! The source of life, beauty and truth, perfect in Himself without any needs … thirsts for an authentic and pure relationship with us! If you haven’t considered this before, realize that this sets our religion and our God apart from all other gods and all other religions.

The Samaritan woman is certainly struck by Jesus’s request. Everyone — Jews and Gentiles alike — was surprised by his opening of the New Covenant to all peoples on earth. Her surprised words, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” are met with what seems like one of the great wry understatements in all of the gospels: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Of course, it’s not wry or an understatement, but the honest truth that he gives her in their moment of mutual thirst.

She doesn’t quite understand what he’s saying, so he elaborates: “the water I shall give will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” As with every word of this passage, so much depth inhabits these words. Jesus is proclaiming the significance of the New Covenant, that his water (the love he will pour out onto humanity with his death and Resurrection) will become a spring for us that wells up to eternal life. A spring is self-regenerating, and let us realize that the self-regenerating aspect of Christianity is the active work of Christ’s Spirit, renewing us in the liturgy and the sacraments. Furthermore, the goal of this water is not physical life but eternal life. Jesus establishes a new goal, a new end-game that we are able to experience thanks to him.

The Samaritan woman exclaims that she would love to have this water, “so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.” She doesn’t quite get it. She still thinks this is about her physical needs (and psychological, since having to keep coming there in the midday sun to avoid the sneers of the more upstanding women of the community would certainly mean psychological stress). So she responds to God’s thirst with her own thirst, but in order to purify her thirst and point it towards her spiritual needs, not just her physical ones, God tests her.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, ~350 AD in the catacombs beneath Rome. Note that many scholars believe this is a closer representation of Christ to how Jews commonly looked in his time, clean-shaven and short-haired. But, we must of course reconcile that with the image found on the Shroud of Turin.

He tells her to get her husband. Certainly a moment of soul-searching for her, she decides to speak the truth and tell him about her unmarried state. Without scorn or harsh judgment, Jesus affirms her statement and details her life of sin to that point. Our lesson here is twofold: we must recognize and atone for our sins in order to begin a correct relationship with God, and God demands truth in our relationship. Because she meets him in truth, the remainder of their conversation is startling in its revelation.

Jesus proclaims to her, the outcast and sinner who is thirsty for Him and honest with Him:

“But the hour is coming, and is now here,
when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth;
and indeed the Father seeks such people to worship him.
God is Spirit, and those who worship him
must worship in Spirit and truth.”

Worshipping in Spirit and truth. This is what the Father thirsts for because he “is Spirit” and we meet him “in Spirit and truth.” It is the activity of our souls, not the activity of our bodies in a certain place (like the mountain or Jerusalem). It is the work of intent and heart, not of bodies and outward ritual.

Jesus reiterates this point when his disciples ask him if he wants to eat and he responds, “I have food to eat of which you do not know. … My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work.” To finish his work! The work of Creation started by God will be finished, refined in the fire of the sacrifice, to purify humanity and make them finally ready to unite with God on the spiritual level for which he always intended.

But before this exchange with the disciples, he makes the most shocking statement in private to the Samaritan woman, acknowledging, “I am he [the Messiah], the one speaking with you.” How can we reconcile this revelation of his identity when he spends much of the gospels asking people not to talk about him as the Messiah and not fully proclaiming it until the time just before his Passion in Jerusalem? How else except to understand this encounter as the prototype for all relationships with God: when we meet him personally, in truth, honestly thirsting for him, then he will share with us all of his glory and revelation. She is the archetype of the sinner who converts in honesty, is baptized in water of the Spirit, and enjoys an honest and blessed existence close to God.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman at the Well, 19th century Russian icon, author unknown | Creative Commons. In this classic icon representation of the gospel scene, we see the scope of the story, from Jesus’s reference to the water in the well (which has taken on a cruciform appearance with his anointing presence) to the disciples backed by mountains (signifying enlightenment and spiritual matters) and the townspeople moving from the town to the mountain.

There is so much to say here: how the townspeople experience this conversion themselves (“We no longer believe because of your word; for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the savior of the world.”), how the well is Jacob’s well and Christ is the Anointed One, greater than the prior prophets and figures in the scriptures and instilling a new meaning on water and the well, etc. But, I’ve gone on long enough.

One last thing to mention that brings us back to St. Paul’s words in the second reading, “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.” The living water that Christ brings to the Samaritan woman at the well is the very same “love of God” St. Paul writes about. That’s why Paul speaks of it as being “poured out.”

Corbon gives us a lovely way to connect water with the love of God:

In the communion of the Blessed Trinity … we find life in its eternal outpouring; the river of life, which John contemplates at the heart of history, is an energy of love at work before the world was. … Yes, the mysterious river of divine communion is an outpouring of love among the Three, and in it eternal life consists. Each person is gift and acceptance of gift. … The river is love, but a love that does not arise in the human heart. The river is life, but a life that does not flow from the human heart. That is because this river, this energy, is wholly other; it is the self-opening of our thrice-holy God.

This is the theology of the Trinity: not just three Persons contained in one God, but three Persons endlessly pouring out their love among one another. Here is the river of life, the river of love, the wellspring of worship: it is located in the “self-opening of our thrice-holy God.” That is why Christ experienced the Passion, death, and Resurrection. He shared with us this self-sacrificing quality of the Trinity; more than shared, he poured upon all of history the river of love that is the fundamental action of the Trinity. THIS is his living water, of which he tells the Samaritan woman, “If you knew the gift of God …”

If you knew the gift, indeed!

Holy Trinity (1620), Hendrick van Balen | Wikimedia Commons. I greatly appreciate the efforts to which van Balen goes to show the loving gazes shared between the three Persons of the Trinity as well as Christ’s crucified foot resting on the world with his Father’s.

March 15, 2020
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.

March 8, 2020
Ambassadors for Christ

Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:12-18, 2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

The readings today certainly set the stage for Lent, as you’d imagine they might on Ash Wednesday. In the gospel reading, Jesus instructs on the appropriate way to pray and fast. This is part of his long sermon that starts with the Beatitudes, taking up three full chapters in Matthew’s gospel. But let’s take our time and see how today’s first two readings tell us why we might be praying and fasting in the first place.

The book of Joel uses lovely language to portray some rather drastic times for the Jewish people. A plague of locusts (some scholars claim this is an allegory for invading armies) has so devastated the land that there is no grain in the fields nor even viable wilderness pasture either thanks to wildfires. The land is ruined, “the ground mourns.” Then the prophet Joel speaks of impending doom, “the day of the Lord,” when the Lord brings an innumerable, unstoppable army upon them. This horrible apocalyptic vision ends with: “Truly the day of the Lord is great; terrible indeed—who can endure it?”

Israelites defeated by Canaanites for Having Disobeyed Moses, ~1590-1610, Antonio Tempesta | Creative Commons license, courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

And that’s the lead up to what we read today. Despite opening with complete despair, we hear undeniable hope from Joel, “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God. For gracious and merciful is he, slow to anger, rich in kindness, and relenting in punishment. Perhaps he will again relent and leave behind him a blessing.” Joel gives us a reason to return to God with our whole hearts: the hope that He will relent from his punishments, that is, the hope that we will be saved and be brought into his Kingdom for eternity. This trumps all of the worldly concerns of barren land and empty granaries. Joel implores the entire populace (“Assemble the elders, gather the children…”) to weep and pray for God’s mercy.

St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians are significantly different than Joel’s instructions for the Jews of his time.

As we move to the New Testament in the second reading, we enter a new world transformed by Christ. We are, ontologically speaking, new beings. St. Paul explains this beautifully elsewhere, in the letter to the Hebrews: “we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all … by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb 10:10,14). We no longer have to keep sacrificing animals and other offerings over and over as we beg for God’s forgiveness and mercy (which he amply provides in the time before Christ). Instead, we are able to commune directly with God thanks to, and through Christ — our new way of “right relationship” with God is called the Holy Liturgy.

This is why St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians are significantly different than Joel’s instructions for the Jews of his time. Christians encounter a new perspective. The first sentence of the reading encapsulates the new reason we pray, fast, and give alms: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.” What an exalted position, ambassadors for Christ! This means that our lives are examples to the world, showing who Christ is. And who exactly was Christ? Above all, he was perfect in devotion to his Father. Therefore, our first act as ambassadors is to embody the humility for the Father that Christ had, the desire to please Him and do His will, the focus on spiritual fortitude, not the pleasures of the world. This is why St. Paul asks the Corinthians to “be reconciled to God” so that they do not “receive the grace of God in vain.” We do this for the Father, yes, but also to grow the Body of Christ in the world.

This brings us to the words of Jesus himself. Shortly before what we read today, he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” (Mt 5:17). And, indeed, he mentions the same prescriptions that prophets like Joel and Isaiah levy upon their people: righteous deeds, giving alms, prayer, and fasting. Only now Christ is instructing us on the way in which we carry out these acts. In order for us to be good ambassadors for him, we must listen intently and understand that he perfected the law, fulfilled the law, and wishes for us to continue this fulfillment of the law as He lives in us. And so we are instructed to fervently pray, fast, give alms, and do good deeds, but to do them in a way that does not draw attention to ourselves. This self-effacement is essential for the good Christian. Why? Because Jesus reminds us in his instructions that all things should begin and end in the Father. All things should point to the Father. What will be noticed are the good works, the alms, the prayerful attitude — all of which speak of God alive in the world. What won’t be noticed is a person trying hard to look pious.

St. Dominic in Penitence, 1607, Filippo Tarchiani | Creative Commons license, courtesy The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This reminds me of St. Dominic. He was known for being an enjoyable, affectionate man in an age when the religious were expected to be grimly serious. Yet he was also famous for his all-night weeping and prayer sessions in the chapel, crying for the lost souls in Purgatory, that kept up the friars in the various monasteries where he rested his head.¹ Here was a saint who actively worked all over Europe doing good deeds, praying, and preaching; in essence, being a fantastic ambassador for Christ. We also know that he was deeply penitent, praying, fasting, and even performing mortification of the flesh three times nightly. Yet those who met him enjoyed his company immensely and did not find him morose or looking like he was in the middle of constant penance. Something about the man always pointed to the goodness of God. In fact, the Dominicans gained an early reputation for being too cheerful and showy, but the order grew in all ways (friars, nuns, laypeople) exponentially.

So that we don’t forget the upshot of all of this, Jesus reminds us in today’s reading at the end of each paragraph. He repeats: “And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.” This is a great reminder of the intensely personal relationship each of us has with our God, who knows us better than we know ourselves. May we all be reconciled to Him this Lent so that we can be excellent ambassadors for Christ!

¹ I am much indebted to Simon Tugwell, OP, for any knowledge I might have about St. Dominic and the early Dominicans. If you haven’t read The Way of the Preacher (among several other excellent books), I highly recommend it.

February 26, 2020