*****
“Go outside and stand before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.”
Conscious of them or not, we all have expectations. We expect things of our family; we expect things of our spouses; we expect things of our children; we expect things of our parents; we expect things of our friends; we expect things of our priests, our doctors, our dentists; we expect things of our employers.
We even expect things from God, especially when it comes to expecting where to find God.
Some expectations are reasonable. We expect to find God in a church, in a sunrise, in a sunset; we expect to find God in the miracle of birth, in the laughter of children and in the gift of friendship.
The problem - rather, the truth – is that God is in many, many more places, people and things than we might expect.
Elijah expected to find God in the obvious places: a strong, rushing wind or a powerful earthquake. Instead, God spoke to him in a tiny whisper. The last place that the disciples expected to find Jesus in the wee hours of the morning was walking on a lake during a storm - yet, there he was!
We should expect to find God in the obvious places, but we must also learn to look for and find God in the places that we least expect. Indeed, the Scriptures are filled with story after story of how God chose to enter the lives of men, women and children in ways that they did not expect.
While our God is a dependable God, our God is also a God of surprises. Our God frequently acts in ways that supersede - and sometimes even shatter - our expectations. Recall the question or criticism levied by some people against Jesus: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Where should we expect to find God? “God is in all things and all places,” wrote St. Francis de Sales.
“Go outside and stand before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.”
Conscious of them or not, we all have expectations. We expect things of our family; we expect things of our spouses; we expect things of our children; we expect things of our parents; we expect things of our friends; we expect things of our priests, our doctors, our dentists; we expect things of our employers.
We even expect things from God, especially when it comes to expecting where to find God.
Some expectations are reasonable. We expect to find God in a church, in a sunrise, in a sunset; we expect to find God in the miracle of birth, in the laughter of children and in the gift of friendship.
The problem - rather, the truth – is that God is in many, many more places, people and things than we might expect.
Elijah expected to find God in the obvious places: a strong, rushing wind or a powerful earthquake. Instead, God spoke to him in a tiny whisper. The last place that the disciples expected to find Jesus in the wee hours of the morning was walking on a lake during a storm - yet, there he was!
We should expect to find God in the obvious places, but we must also learn to look for and find God in the places that we least expect. Indeed, the Scriptures are filled with story after story of how God chose to enter the lives of men, women and children in ways that they did not expect.
While our God is a dependable God, our God is also a God of surprises. Our God frequently acts in ways that supersede - and sometimes even shatter - our expectations. Recall the question or criticism levied by some people against Jesus: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Where should we expect to find God? “God is in all things and all places,” wrote St. Francis de Sales.
“There is no place or thing in this world where God is not truly present. Just as wherever birds fly they always encounter the air, so also wherever we go or wherever we are we find God present. Everyone knows this truth but not everyone manages to remain mindful of it.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 2)
Like God, opportunities for doing what is just, peaceable, honest, loving, healing and caring can be found everywhere. To what degree are we too enamored of our own expectations of God to recognize God's expectations of us, especially in the smallest and more ordinary things, events and circumstances? “Go outside and stand before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.”
Conscious of them or not, we all have expectations. We expect things of our family; we expect things of our spouses; we expect things of our children; we expect things of our parents; we expect things of our friends; we expect things of our priests, our doctors, our dentists; we expect things of our employers.
We even expect things from God, especially when it comes to expecting where to find God.
Some expectations are reasonable. We expect to find God in a church, in a sunrise, in a sunset; we expect to find God in the miracle of birth, in the laughter of children and in the gift of friendship.
The problem - rather, the truth – is that God is in many, many more places, people and things than we might expect.
Elijah expected to find God in the obvious places: a strong, rushing wind or a powerful earthquake. Instead, God spoke to him in a tiny whisper. The last place that the disciples expected to find Jesus in the wee hours of the morning was walking on a lake during a storm - yet, there he was!
We should expect to find God in the obvious places, but we must also learn to look for and find God in the places that we least expect. Indeed, the Scriptures are filled with story after story of how God chose to enter the lives of men, women and children in ways that they did not expect.
While our God is a dependable God, our God is also a God of surprises. Our God frequently acts in ways that supersede - and sometimes even shatter - our expectations. Recall the question or criticism levied by some people against Jesus: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Where should we expect to find God? “God is in all things and all places,” wrote St. Francis de Sales.
“There is no place or thing in this world where God is not truly present. Just as wherever birds fly they always encounter the air, so also wherever we go or wherever we are we find God present. Everyone knows this truth but not everyone manages to remain mindful of it.” (Introduction to the Devout Life, Part II, Chapter 2)
Like God, opportunities for doing what is just, peaceable, honest, loving, healing and caring can be found everywhere. To what degree are we too enamored of our own expectations of God to recognize God's expectations of us, especially in the smallest and more ordinary things, events and circumstances?
*****
Today we remember the ultimate sacrifice made by the Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, Maximilian Kolbe.
“During the Second World War, he provided shelter to refugees from Greater Poland, including 2,000 Jews whom he hid from Nazi persecution in his friary in Niepokalanów. On 17 February 1941, he was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Pawiak prison. On 28 May, he was transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner #16670. At the end of July 1941, three prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting the deputy camp commander to select ten men to be starved to death in an underground bunker in order to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected for reprisal cried out, ‘My wife - my children’, Kolbe volunteered to take his place.”
“In the starvation cell, he celebrated Mass each day and sang hymns with the prisoners. He led the other condemned men in song and prayer. Each time the guards checked on him, he was standing or kneeling in the middle of the cell and looking calmly at those who entered. After two weeks of dehydration and starvation, only Kolbe remained alive. The guards administered to Kolbe a lethal injection of carbolic acid. Some who were present at the injection say that he raised his left arm and calmly waited for the injection. His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximilian_Kolbe)
In today’s Gospel selection from Matthew, Jesus tells his disciples that “The Son of Man will be handed over to men, and they will kill him.” Maximilian Kolbe shared the same sacrifice as his Lord and Savior by the manner in which he died, offering his life for another.
Today, how far would we be willing to go to sacrifice for the good of someone else?
*****
“Blessed are you among women ...”
Our Salesian reflection for this Solemnity – the Assumption – comes entirely from Francis de Sales’ Treatise on the Love of God, Book 7, Chapter 14.
“I do not deny that the soul of the most Blessed Virgin had two portions, and therefore two appetites, one according to the spirit and superior reason, and the other according to sense and inferior reason, with the result that she could experience the struggle and contradiction of one appetite against the other. This burden was felt even by her Son. I say that in this heavenly Mother all affections were so well arranged and ordered that love of God held empire and dominion most peaceably without being troubled by diversity of wills and appetites or by contradiction of senses. Neither repugnance of natural appetite nor sensual movements ever went as far as sin, not even as far as venial sin. On the contrary, all was used holily and faithfully in the service of the holy love for the exercise of the other virtues which, for the most part, cannot be practiced except amid difficulty, opposition and contradiction…”
“As everyone knows, the magnet naturally draws iron towards itself by some power both secret and very wonderful. However, there are five things that hinder this operation: (1) if there is too great a distance between magnet and iron; (2) if there is a diamond placed between the two; (3) if the iron is greased; (4) if the iron is rubbed with onion; (5) if the iron is too heavy.”
“Our heart is made for God, and God constantly entices it and never ceases to cast before it the allurements of divine love. Yet five things impede the operation of this holy attraction: (1) sin, which removes us from God; (2) affection for riches; (3) sensual pleasures; (4) pride and vanity; (5) self-love, together with the multitude of disordered passions it brings forth, which are like a heavy load wearing it down.”
“None of these hindrances had a place in the heart of the glorious Virgin. She was: (1) forever preserved from all sin; (2) forever most poor in spirit; (3) forever most pure; (4) forever most humble; (5) forever the peaceful mistress of all her passions and completely exempt from the rebellion that self-love wages against love of God. For this reason, just as the iron, if free from all obstacles and even from its own weight, would be powerfully yet gently drawn with steady attraction by the magnet – although in such wise that the attraction would always be more active and stronger according as they came closer together and their motion approached its end – so, too, the most Blessed Mother, since there is nothing in her to impede the operation of her Son’s divine love, was united with him in an incomparable union by gentle ecstasies without trouble or travail.”
“They were ecstasies in which the sensible part did not cease to perform its actions but without in any way disturbing the spiritual union, just as, in turn, perfect application of the spirit did not cause any great distraction to the senses. Hence, the Virgin’s death was the most gentle that can be imagined, for her Son sweetly drew her after the odor of his perfumes and she most lovingly flowed out after their sacred sweetness even to the bosom of her Son’s goodness. Although this holy soul had supreme love for her own most holy, most pure, and most lovable body, yet she forsook it without any pain or resistance…At the foot of the cross love had given to this divine spouse the supreme sorrows of death. Truly, then, it was reasonable that in the end death would give her the supreme delights of love.”
*****
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
In the book, Francis de Sales, Jane de Chantal: Letters of Spiritual Direction, we read:
“The Salesian spirit is contextual. It is relational. Making Jesus live is not something that occurs solely in the isolated individual vis-à-vis his or her own God. It is not something that is forged only out of the solitary vigil of silence represented by the hermit monk. (The word monk itself comes from the root ‘monos” or ‘alone’.) A better word to portray the Salesian spirit might be ‘between’. It is what goes on between persons – in their relationships – that are of the essence in making Jesus live. The interpersonal dimension of the Salesian spirit deepens the importance of the insight that it is in the midst that one loves God. For it is not that one glimpses God despite the persons around one, but rather that one finds God precisely through and with those persons.” (LSD, p. 46)
Indeed, our attempts at making Jesus live in us can only be completely achieved by our willingness to help others to do the same in their own unique ways. In other words, when it comes to our individual attempts at “Living Jesus”, we are in this together!
*****
“This is how you will know that there is a living God in your midst.”
For the purposes of our reflection this morning, let us rephrase that statement from today’s reading from the Book of Joshua as a question: “How will you know that there is a living God in your midst?” One of the most visible ways of recognizing the living God in our midst is through our daily practice of devotion - in particular, as Jesus clearly states in today’s Gospel, through the practice of a very specific virtue.
That virtue – forgiveness!
