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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2015 8:01:49 GMT -5
LENT DAY 29 - ENGAGING AT CLOSE QUARTERS What is our greatest fear? Ultimately, it's the fear of death. The final dark power that rends the world is the power of death. What flows from our fear of death? The spiritual masters all agree that what flows is sin and division in all its forms. I lash out in violence and retribution because I'm afraid to die. The same fear causes me to turn in on myself, becoming self-absorbed as you become an enemy. The fear of death is like a dark cloud that broods over human life. Therefore, when God's warrior arrives, the ultimate enemy he comes to face is death itself. And he engages the enemy at close quarters. A warrior who never fights at close quarters won't win. So Jesus goes into violence, into dysfunction, and into the lack of forgiveness, and that's where he brings God's love. In fact, he must go all the way into the power of death itself in order to wrestle it to the ground. That's the language the Church Fathers use, by the way. The cross is Jesus going into the very lair of death. He goes to meet head-on that which frightens us the most. And what does He do? He battles it. He engages it. And finally he conquers it. Remember Jesus Himself said that, "No one can plunder the house of a strong man unless a stronger one comes and ties him up." The strong man is death itself. No one will conquer death until a stronger one comes and ties him up. Jesus is the very strength of God now tying up the strong man of death. "Death is a kind of kidnapper who holds the whole human race for ransom. Jesus the warrior conquers and ties him up. In the process, all of us are liberated." - Fr. Robert Barron www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-29-engaging-at-close-quarters/ |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 19, 2015 7:51:03 GMT -5
LENT DAY 30 - BEASTS OF THE EARTH During Lent, we may spend time doing battle with what we call our "animal passions." But this may not be the right way to put it because God's covenant is made, not just with men and women, but with the animals as well. I know this sounds strange to us, but that is because we are the heirs of modernity, a philosophical movement that tends to separate human beings radically from other animals and from nature. Modernity sees them as, at best, things that might serve us or be mastered by us. But God has a much more integrated vision of things. All creatures, coming forth from God, are ontological siblings - brothers and sisters of the same Father. In finding oneness with God, we find, ipso facto, oneness with the rest of creation. This idea is reflected in much of the great tradition prior to modernity. St. Thomas Aquinas says that vegetable, plants, and animals are ensouled like us. In fact, the word "animal" just means "thing with an anima ". Thomas saw us as part of a great chain or hierarchy of being. But for the modern consciousness, we are disconnected from this chain. We have so mastered nature that we are, effectively, alienated from it.
In biblical terms, this alienation is an outgrowth of sin. Sin is the caving in on oneself, prompted by fear and pride, effectively cutting us off from each other. But sin also cuts us off from the non-human world around us. It cuts us off from our love for it, our curiosity about it, our care for it, and our fascination with it.
But Jesus, in his own person, joins together the disparate elements of creation, the spiritual and the material, angels and wild beasts. He brings them together and re-links the chain of being.
"There are, of course, angels and wild beasts in all of us. We are all a microcosm of the ethereal and the corporeal, the spiritual and the physical."
- Fr. Robert Barron
www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-30-beasts-of-the-earth/ |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 20, 2015 8:26:34 GMT -5
LENT DAY 31 - ANIMALS AND ANGELS Medieval scholars said that the human being was a kind of microcosm, since he bore within himself the spiritual and the physical. Through his body, man reached down to the lower elements and was one with the animals and minerals, but through his mind, he reached upwards to God and the angels. We know instinctively how right this is. On the one hand, we can explore the intricacies of mathematics and geometry. We can soar with Mozart and Shakespeare. We can design high-level computers and machines that can move through the galaxy. We can enter into the depth and silence of prayer, becoming as much like the angels as possible. In so many ways, we strain upward to our home among the spirits. On the other hand, we are, like it or not, animals. We need food and drink. We get too hot and too cold. We experience instincts and emotions that often get the better of us. We revel in the sheer pleasure of the senses and the thrill of being touched. We love to run, to exercise our muscles. We exult in the rough and tumble of very physical competition and play. This is our glory - we combine the best of both worlds - but it is also our agony, the source of much of our sadness and conflict, for it entails that we are a hybrid, a half-breed, something of a metaphysical mongrel. We bring together two qualities that are at odds with each other. The spirit strains against the body, and the body strains against the spirit. Sometimes the spirit commands and the body refuses to obey; sometimes the body makes demands that the spirit cannot or will not accommodate. This tension is one of the faces of sin. It is the result of the dislocation between ourselves and God. The harmony of the spiritual and the physical seems to be what God savors and intends. The spirit commanding the body, but the body also informing the spirit. There is a proper hierarchy between them, but it must never become a tyranny. The demands and goods of the body must always be respected and must even, to some degree, shape the life of the spirit. We were made as embodied spirits, or if you prefer, as spiritualized bodies. And we will be saved as spirit-body composites. "Jesus was raised, body and soul, from the dead. The Resurrection was not the escape of a soul from a body." - Fr. Robert Barron www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-31-animals-and-angels/ |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2015 8:01:33 GMT -5
LENT DAY 32 - THE GOOD SHEPHERD
This great identification of Jesus as the Good Shepherd is one that has captivated the Christian imagination for two thousand years. One of the most beautiful depictions of Jesus from the early centuries is a statue of a young, beardless man holding a sheep over his shoulders. It's an image, of course, which has come out of the agrarian culture of the first century, and one that ancient Israelites would be very familiar with.To the rural people who were his first followers, this image was natural. Shepherds guarded, guided, protected, and watched over their flocks - just as God guards, guides, protects and watches over Israel.
Now what precisely makes Jesus the Good Shepherd? The Good Shepherd is so other-oriented, so devoted to his sheep that he is willing to surrender his life that they might live. Now this sounds nice at first blush, but the longer you think about it, the stranger it becomes. Sure, a good shepherd should do all that he can to protect and guide his flock, but who among us would really expect him to give his life for them? Suppose a pack of wolves descended on the flock. Would we really expect the shepherd to throw himself in front of the ravenous creatures in order to protect the sheep? At the limit, we might expect him to give his life for his human family, or for other human beings, but for animals.
But this is precisely what Jesus claims to do. Imagine the difference between humans and sheep and now multiply that difference infinitely. That would give you some idea of the difference between God and humanity. And yet God is willing to lay down his life for the likes of us.
"God is love, and that means that God wills the good of the other, even when there is nothing "in it" for him."
- Fr. Robert Barron
reflections here:http://www.lentreflections.com/lent-day-32-the-good-shepherd/
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2015 9:28:04 GMT -5
LENT DAY 33 - THE SHEPHERD'S VOICE
A good shepherd who is really attentive to his sheep knows the distinctive voices of his charges. Just as a mother knows the voices of her children, so the shepherd can recognize the call of his sheep. And wonderfully, the sheep know the shepherd's voice. When they hear it, they joyfully fall in line, for they know that the shepherd is the key to their flourishing.
Jesus Christ, as the Good Shepherd, says that he has come to gather the nations, and the nations, by implication, will recognize his voice when they hear it.
What is it that leads people to accept Jesus Christ? What is it that appeals to them when they read the Scripture or they approach the sacraments?
We could say that it is only custom or background or luck but I think that something much deeper is going on. There is a resonance when Christ's voice is heard precisely because the whole world has been wired to hear it. The voice of Jesus is the voice of the gatherer. We lost sheep implicitly recognize it and respond.
Jesus is so much more than an inspiring moral example and much more than a saint whose dedication and love we admire. Jesus is someone who knows us personally. He is the one who can pick out our voices from the hubbub around us; who knows our names and distinctive needs and desires. We are known by him. When we pray in our distinctive way, we are heard.
And more to it, we hear his voice and recognize it as the key to our flourishing. We have been wired for the Word of God, and Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. We instinctively know that he has the words of everlasting life. And just as the sheep long to be commanded, so we long to be ordered by the Word of God.
"The whole culture forms us in the direction of autonomy, but that is not what satisfies the soul."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 23, 2015 8:14:43 GMT -5
LENT DAY 34 - SHEPHERD KING
The personal nature of our relationship with Jesus is encapsulated in the title the Good Shepherd. Jesus is someone who calls to us, who speaks amidst the cacophony of sounds. And it is a personal voice; it is not an idea that appeals to us, a conviction that dawns on us, a resolution that we take. It is a person. It is Jesus himself.
More to the point, he hears our voices. He is like a mother who can hear the cry of her child amidst a riot of sound and who can block out or ignore any sound except that of her child in distress. So, the Gospel claims, Jesus hears our voices when we call out to him.
His is the voice that is supposed to gather all the sheep: "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must lead them too and they shall hear my voice. There shall be one flock, one shepherd." There is only one name by which people are to be saved - the name of Jesus.
His voice is the voice of our shepherd, and our King.
"God condescends in Christ to enter our human condition and to give his whole self away for our sakes."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2015 8:17:43 GMT -5
LENT DAY 35 - NEW WINESKINS
Up and down the centuries, the mark of Christianity is joy. What could be better news than ours? Sometimes we might even wonder if Christianity is almost too good to be true, for from the standpoint of our cramped and fallen minds, this news is just too much. This is why Jesus says, "No one pours new wine into old wine skins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins and both wine and skins will be lost."
The new wine is good news, the Gospel, the Incarnation, the enfleshment of God. It is wine because it is intoxicating; it is new because no one had imagined it possible. The receptacle for this wine must be, as far as possible, conformed to it.
Aristotle said that whatever is received is received according to the mode and capacity of the recipient. His dictum applies exactly here. To take in the Good News, we can't be living in the cramped space of our sinful souls. We can't have an "expect the worst" attitude. We can't be dreaming small dreams.
Imagine someone at a wedding feast who is in a terrible mood. Dancing and singing and laughing are swirling around him, but he is caught in the cramped space of his own depression. If someone were to ask him, "How was the wedding?" he would undoubtedly respond, "Lousy, boring, annoying."
We must, as Jesus suggested, "change the minds that we have." This is the basic meaning of metanoia (or repentance): going beyond the attitude that we have. What happens if the Good News is announced to someone who hasn't changed his mind and life? "Both wine and skins would be lost." And the Gospel itself would, in that case, be lost - spilled out on the ground.
"When we are not flexible and expansive enough to receive the Gospel, our souls could be broken by it, overwhelmed by it."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2015 7:16:57 GMT -5
LENT DAY 36 - THE MORE
There are odd and precious moments in life when we sense that, behind the veil of our sensible experience, there is something more. We never see this dimension of reality directly or clearly. It is usually felt or intuited more than "seen" or "known." But when we are in touch with it, we sense that it is more real, more important, more enduring than anything in our ordinary experience.
The philosophers sometimes refer to these as "limit" experiences or "peak" experiences. The poet William Blake spoke of seeing the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower and of "holding infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour." Meister Eckhart spoke of Durchbruch, a breakthrough, when the higher world, for a moment, comes crashing into this one.
The great biblical tradition speaks of moments of revelation, when God speaks. It is easy enough for the casual rationalists and atheists of today to write all of this off as so much nonsense or as wishful thinking, but those who have experienced these moments know how important, how desperately real they are.
Anyone who has ever experienced the More - from the Blessed Mother to Bernadette of Lourdes to C.S. Lewis - knows how good it is, how joyful, how wonderful. Once it has been tasted, nothing seems as thrilling or rich. It is also why we want to hang on to the experience.
But it just doesn't work that way, at least while we remain in this world and in these bodies. Some day, on that eschatological day, we will remain with all of those who have passed definitively into the More, but for now, we have to focus on our mission at this place, and at this time.
"We read the Bible, not simply as the account of discrete events within history, but as a connection to the More, who is God."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2015 9:27:49 GMT -5
LENT DAY 37 - THE WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY
I have mentioned the French philosopher René Girard before. Much of his work has centered on the phenomenon of group psychology, especially around the scapegoating mechanism. He says that a kind of community is formed precisely when a variety of people, who would otherwise rather dislike one another, come together in a common hatred of someone else.
We can see this, Girard tells us, at all levels, from the most personal to the most collective, from families to nation-states. How often is there a "black sheep" in a family? He or she plays an important role in family stability and identity. What is the only thing that two scholars can agree on? How poor the work of a third scholar is! What is the only thing two musicians can agree upon? How awful another musician's composition is.
This dynamic is in effect in one of the most beautifully crafted stories in the New Testament: the woman caught in adultery. The text tells us "They caught her in the very act of adultery." Where were they situated in order to catch her in the very act?! The voyeurism and perversion of these men is shocking. They then come en masse, in the terrible enthusiasm of a mob, and they present the case to Jesus.
Now what does Jesus do in the face of this violent mob that is seeking release from its tension? First, he bends down and writes on the ground. Sometimes silence, a refusal to co-operate is the best opening move. But the mysterious writing might indicate something else: the writing down of the sins of each person in the group, as some early theologians surmised.
Jesus then says, "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her." He forces them to turn their accusing glance inward, where it belongs. Instead of projecting their violence outward on a scapegoat, they should honestly name and confront the dysfunction within them. This story, like all the stories in the Gospels, is a foreshadowing of the great story toward which we are tending. Jesus will be put to death by a mob bent on scapegoating violence.
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. That is Jesus' response to the blind psychology of the mob."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2015 7:40:02 GMT -5
LENT DAY 38 - SAINTS AND SINNERS
Why worry excessively about what came before? Why obsess over your past sins? God is much more interested in your future than in your past. We have a God who "makes all things new." And in that we find hope.
It is a sad commentary indeed, but religious people are often tempted to trap others in their past, nail them to the cross of the mistakes they have made, using religion itself to affect this imprisonment. This is as true today as it was in the time of Christ when the mob brought the woman caught in adultery before him.
In one of the great one-liners of the entire Bible, Jesus disarms them: "Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Our solidarity in sin ought to awaken in us a greater compassion for one another. At this prompting, they drifted away, one by one until Jesus was left alone with the woman.
Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin anymore." How rich is that little word, "Go." Again, what is being emphasized is the future not the past, straining on to what lies ahead, not obsessing with what lies behind.
Do you feel terribly imprisoned by your past? Perhaps you've done something terrible, something awful and shameful and every time you think of it, you cringe. Or perhaps someone has harmed you so severely that you just can't let go of the hurt and you continue to seethe with resentment. Perhaps you feel that you've done something so wrong that not even God can forgive you. You don't even bother going to confession because you're just too ashamed, convinced that God wouldn't forgive you.
What I want you to know right here and now is that there is a way out, a way forward, a path opening up in the desert.
You might be miseria (in misery) but standing right in front of you is Misericordia (mercy).
"Remember, every saint had a past and every sinner has a future."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 28, 2015 9:35:51 GMT -5
LENT DAY 39 - REDEMPTIVE SUFFERING
With Jesus Christ, something altogether new has entered the world, something that is deeply pleasing to God and therefore of salvific significance to us. Called "redemptive suffering," it is beautifully stated in the first letter of Peter: "If you put up with suffering for doing what is right, this is acceptable in God's eyes. It was for this that you were called, since Christ suffered for you in just this way and left you an example to have you follow in his footsteps."
What, precisely, is redemptive suffering? Well, it is not just suffering per se. Suppose you are being physically abused; suppose you are being economically and politically oppressed, and you suffer. That's just suffering, plain and simple - and there is nothing good about it. Nor is it the suffering that comes from resisting evil through violence. That has its place - as a last resort - but that is not redemptive suffering. It might be morally justified or even heroic, but it is not redemptive.
Redemptive suffering is what Jesus did on the cross: putting up with suffering for doing what is right. This is pleasing in God's eyes, precisely because it is redemptive for the world, precisely because it takes away something that God hates.
How does it work? Well, it is not tantamount to being a doormat in the presence of evil or just allowing oneself to be walked on. It always involves a clear naming of the violence or injustice or disorder. It entails speaking the truth publicly and unambiguously. And then it is being willing to suffer the effects of the injustice or violence.
What does this do? It allows the perpetrator of the injustice (and the whole world) to see what his violence has done, to really see it. And it signals that the sufferer of the injustice is living in an entirely different spiritual space.
Redemptive suffering literally redeems (i.e., buys back) the perpetrator of injustice.
"Redemptive suffering is an expression of love."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2015 9:12:20 GMT -5
PALM SUNDAY - BEARING CHRIST TO THE WORLD
On this Palm Sunday, I should like to reflect on a King and an ass. A donkey, an ass, was in Jesus time much what it is today: a humble, simple, unassuming little animal, used by very ordinary people to do their work. The wealthy and powerful might own horses or a team of oxen and a political leader might ride a stately steed, but none of them would have anything to do with donkeys.
All of his public career, Jesus had resisted when people called him the Messiah. He sternly ordered them to be silent. When they came to carry him off and make him King, he slipped away. But he is willing to accept these titles precisely at the moment when he rides into Jerusalem on an ass. The Gospel is clear: this is not only an ass; it is a colt, the foal of an ass, on whom no one had ever previously sat. This is a young, inexperienced, unimpressive donkey. And this is the animal upon whom Jesus rides into town in triumph.
This is no ordinary King; this is not the Messiah that they expected.
Now let us look even more closely at the ass. Jesus tells two of his disciples to go into a neighboring town and to find this beast of burden. "If anyone asks, respond, 'the Master has need of it.'" The humble donkey, pressed into service, is a model of discipleship. Our purpose in life is not to draw attention to ourselves, to have a brilliant career, to aggrandize our egos; rather our purpose is to serve the Master's need, to cooperate, as he sees fit, with his work.
What was the donkey's task? He was a Christopher, a Christ-bearer. He carried the Lord into Jerusalem, paving the way for the passion and the redemption of the world. Would anyone have particularly noticed him? Probably not, except perhaps to laugh at this ludicrous animal.
The task of every disciple is just the same: to be a Christopher, a bearer of Christ to the world. Might we be unnoticed in this? Yes. Might we be laughed at? Of course. But the Master has need of us and so we perform our essential task.
"Your life is not about you."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 30, 2015 8:30:05 GMT -5
LENT DAY 41 - A NEW TEMPLE
St. Mark tells us that Jesus approached the Holy City of Jerusalem from the east: "When Jesus and his disciples drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives..." The Mount of Olives was just to the east of Jerusalem, and Bethphage and Bethany were on the eastern slope of the Mount.
Why in the world would the direction of his approach be important? Well, in the prophet Ezekiel, we hear that, because of the corruption of the Temple, the glory of the Lord had departed. This was one of the most devastating events in all of the Old Testament, for the Temple of the Lord was, in practically a literal sense, the dwelling place of Yahweh. To imagine that the glory of the Lord had quit the Temple was shocking in the extreme.
However, Ezekiel prophesied that one day the Lord would return to the Temple, and from the same direction by which he departed. Upon the return of the glory of Yahweh, Ezekiel predicted, the Temple would be rebuilt, reconstituted.
Pious Jews in Jesus' time certainly knew these texts. As they watched Jesus, they couldn't help but think of them, because Jesus proclaimed himself the true Temple: "You have a greater than the Temple here." And then see what Mark saw: Jesus approaching the old Temple from the east, just as Ezekiel said the glory of Yahweh would approach the Temple. Jesus, speaking and acting in the very person of God, is the glory of Yahweh taking possession of his house.
"Jesus was the glory of Yahweh returning to reclaim his Temple."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Mar 31, 2015 8:51:16 GMT -5
LENT DAY 42 - THE WAR CONTINUES
As Christians we rejoice for Jesus Christ is Lord. God is King. Sin and death have been defeated. At the same time, we mustn't succumb to a "cheap grace" interpretation of Christianity, whereby Christ is risen and all is well. As Julian of Norwich said, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." Notice the future tense!
The definitive battle has been won, but the war continues. St. Paul knew this well. His strategy, as we know, was to go to synagogues first, for the message he had was a distinctively Jewish message: that the long-awaited Messiah had come.
Many Jews listened - and this was the beginning of Paul's church. We hear that in Antioch practically the whole city gathered to listen to Paul and Barnabas. But "when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and with violent abuse contradicted what Paul said." Please don't fall into an anti-Semitic trap here, for many of the Jews did listen to him. But from the beginning, this message was opposed.
Why? The most basic reason is that acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus means that your life has to change. For many this is liberating good news, but for others it is a tremendous threat. If Jesus is Lord, my ego cannot be Lord. My country cannot be Lord. My convictions or culture cannot be Lord.
The Resurrection is the clearest indication of the Lordship of Jesus. This is why the message of the Resurrection is attacked, belittled, and explained away. The author of Acts speaks of the "violent abuse" hurled at Paul. What was Paul's reaction to this? He "shook the dust from [his] feet in protest against them, and went to Iconium" where he was "filled with joy and the Holy Spirit."
We're up against a great mystery here. We are called to announce the good news to everyone, but not everyone will listen. Once we've done our work, we should move on and not obsess about those who won't listen. Why do some respond and some don't? Finally, that's up to God.
"God is grasping the world through Christ, but it is a struggle."
- Fr. Robert Barron
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2015 7:34:06 GMT -5
LENT DAY 43 - TEMPTATIONS IN REVIEW
We have come, once more, to the end of the holy season of Lent. Lent is, by its nature, a desert time, which is to say, a time of simplicity, purification, and asceticism. In so many of the great figures of salvation history - Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, David, etc. - a period of testing or trial is required before they can commence their work. We see the same thing in the initiation rituals of primal peoples as well - and you can see it in Luke Skywalker's initiation in Star Wars. The goal of the initiation rituals is to inculcate in the initiate this simple truth: your life is not about you.
When we began this foray into the desert, we looked at the temptations that faced Jesus and, by extension, all of us. The desert represents a stripping away so as to make the fundamental things appear. In the desert, there are no distractions or diversions or secondary matters. Everything is basic, necessary, simple. One survives or one doesn't. One discovers in the desert strengths and weaknesses he didn't know he had.
So how have you done in your desert these forty days? How have you dealt with temptations to sensual pleasure, power, and glory? Even if you have not completely succeeded in the way you wanted, remember: our God is a God of second chances. As we enter into the final days before Easter, renew your commitment and start again.
How has God tested you this Lent?"
- Fr. Robert Barron
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