*****
“Observe what is right, do what is just; for my salvation is about to come, my justice, about to be revealed.”
Our God can be described in many ways: a God of love, a God of life, a God of salvation, a God of reconciliation and a God of peace. As today’s reading from the prophet Isaiah reminds us, our God is also a God of justice. What this description of God means that God is just, that God is fair. God is morally righteous. God is reasoned, reasonable and truthful.
In other words, God gives people their due.
We are made in the image and likeness of God. To that end, like God, we are also called to be people of justice and to give others their due.
Insofar as God calls us to live justly, one of our greatest temptations is to act in an unjust manner, that is, to live with “two hearts”. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“In general, we prefer the rich to the poor…we even prefer those who are better dressed. We rigorously demand our own rights but want others to be considerate in insisting on theirs. We complain easily about our neighbors, but we would expect them to never complain about us. What we do for others always seems so very great, but what others do for us seems like nothing at all. In short, we have two hearts. We have a mild, gracious and courteous attitude toward ourselves but an entirely different demeanor that is hard, severe and unyielding toward others.” (Part III, Chapter 36)
Francis de Sales challenged us:
“Be just and equitable in all your actions. Always put yourself in your neighbors' place and them in yours, and then you will live justly. Imagine yourself the seller when you buy and the buyer when you sell and you will sell and buy justly……In the end, we lose nothing by living generously, nobly, courteously and with a royal, just and reasonable heart. Examine your heart frequently to see if it is disposed toward your neighbor as you want your neighbor's heart to be disposed toward you.” (Ibid)
Justice, then, is not merely imitating some remote, unachievable attribute. Justice is not solely an issue of remedying social inequity. Justice is not limited to working for some noble, global purpose. Justice must be the hallmark of even the smallest, most mundane dimensions of the lives of all those who wish to follow Jesus, who wish to live a devout life. It is, in truth, about being more fully - and deeply - human.To the extent that we treat others as we would want them to treat us in the small and ordinary exchanges of everyday life - fairly, reasonably, rightly - we reveal something of God's divine justice. What better way is there for us to give what is due to God, than by giving what is due to one another…and, in the process, to know the blessedness that comes with being single-hearted?
And why not begin today?
*****
“If you wish to be perfect, sell what you have and give to the poor…”
And the man went away sad, for he had many possessions.
Listen carefully to Jesus’ words. He doesn’t say, “Give it all to the poor”. He does say, “Give to the poor.” This presumes that what – or how much – is given to the poor is left to the individual to decide. In the case of the unnamed young man in today’s Gospel, perhaps his sadness was caused by the fact that he didn’t want to give anything – not one bit – to the poor. His unwillingness to share even the smallest amount of his good fortune with others makes his reluctance he even more saddening.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales counseled:
“We must practice real poverty in the midst of all the goods and riches that God has given us. Frequently give up some of your property by giving it with a generous heart to the poor. To give away what we have is to impoverish ourselves in proportion as we give, and the more we give the poorer we become. It is true that God will repay us not only in the next world but even in this world…Oh, how holy and how rich is the poverty brought on by giving alms!” (IDL, Part II, Chapter 15. p. 165)
Listen carefully to Francis’ words: “Frequently give up some of your property…”
Count your blessings. Name your possessions. Be they material, like money, or non-material, like influence, time or talent, what transforms our riches into wealth is our willingness to share them with the poor, with the impoverished, with the less-fortunate and with those who have fallen on hard times.
Do you want to gain eternal life? How many – or much – of your possessions are you willing to share with anyone poor or needy?
Just today?
*****
“It will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”
Riches themselves are not the greatest obstacle to our entering into the Kingdom of God. From a Salesian perspective, it is our desire for riches that poses the problem - the grandeur with which we protect them and the passion with which we pursue them.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales observed:
“Your heart must be open to heaven alone and impervious to riches and all other transitory things. Whatever part of them you may possess, you must keep your heart free from too strong an affection for them. Always keep your heart above riches: even when your heart is surrounded by riches, see to it that your heart remains distinct from them and master over them. Do not allow your heavenly spirit to become captive to earthly things. Let your heart remain always superior to riches and over them – not in them… I willingly grant that you may take care to increase your wealth and resources, provided this is done not only justly but also properly and charitably.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 163)
How can we determine if our possessions might be holding us back from the Kingdom of Heaven? Francis wrote:
“If you find your heart very desolated and devastated at the loss of anything you possess then believe me when I tell you that you love it too much. The strongest proof of how deeply we are attached to possessions is the degree of suffering we experience when we lose it.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 164)
Are we experiencing any difficulties as we strive to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven during our journey here on earth? Perhaps, it is because our possessions have somehow managed to possess us!
*****
“Are you envious because I am generous?”
The parable in today’s Gospel certainly suggests that those who labored the longest surely were envious! They felt cheated, because as we are told, they “grumbled” –when they realized that the landowner had paid them the same amount as those who had barely worked a few hours! In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales counseled:
“We must be most careful not to spend much time wondering why God bestows a grace upon one person rather than another, or why God makes his favors abound on behalf of one rather than another. No, never give in to such musings. Since each of us has a sufficient – rather, an abundant measure of all things required or salvation – who in all the world can rightly complain if it pleases God to bestow his graces more largely on some than on others?” (Living Jesus, 0618, p. 246)
Of course, given how generous God is to us we would never be envious or complain about somebody else having more than we do - would we?
*****
“Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your Kingdom…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“You can see how God – by progressive stages filled with unutterable sweetness – leads the soul forward and enables it to leave the Egypt of sin. He leads it from love to love, as from dwelling to dwelling, until He has made it enter into the Promised Land. By this I mean that God brings it into most holy charity, which, to state it succinctly, is a form of friendship…Such friendship is true friendship, since it is reciprocal, for God has eternally loved all those who have loved Him, who now love Him or who will love Him in time…He has openly revealed all His secrets to us as to His closest friends…” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 22, pp. 160 - 161)
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is clear and unambiguous about the quality that makes Bartholomew (a.k.a., Nathaniel) a friend of God: “There is no guile in him.” There is no pretense in Bartholomew – nothing fake, nothing phony. Jesus sees him as a man who is real, authentic and transparent - he is an open book.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales offered some practical advice regarding how to practice the virtue of guilelessness
“Your language should be retrained, frank, sincere, candid unaffected and honest…As the sacred Scripture tells us, The Holy Spirit does not dwell in a deceitful or tricky soul. No artifice is so good and desirable as plain dealing. Worldly prudence and carnal artifice belong to the children of this world, but the children (the friends) of God walk a straight path and their hearts are without guile.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 30, p. 206)
Do you want to be a friend of God today? Like Bartholomew, strive to be guileless. Simply try to be yourself – nothing more and nothing less.
*****
“The LORD keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets captives free. “St. Louis led an exemplary life. His biographers have told us of the long hours he spent in prayer, fasting and penance, without the knowledge of his subjects. The French king was a great lover of justice. It was during his reign that the ‘court of the king’ (curia regis) was organized into a regular court of justice, having competent experts, and judicial commissions acting at regular periods.” “He was renowned for his charity. ‘The peace and blessings of the realm come to us through the poor,’ he would say. Beggars were fed from his table, he ate their leavings, washed their feet, ministered to the wants of the lepers, and daily fed over one hundred poor. He founded many hospitals and houses: the House of the Felles-Dieu for reformed prostitutes; the Quinze-Vingt for three hundred blind men and the hospitals at Pontoise, Vernon, and Compiégne.” “St. Louis was a man of sound common sense, possessing indefatigable energy, graciously kind and of playful humor, and constantly guarding against the temptation to be imperious. His personal qualities as well as his saintliness greatly enhanced the prestige of the French monarchy. Boniface VIII canonized St. Louis at Orvieto in 1297.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09368a.htm)
In a letter addressed to Jane de Chantal’s son Celse-Benigne, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Imagine that you were a courtier of St. Louis. This holy king liked the people around him to be brave, courageous, generous, cheerful, courteous, affable, frank and polite – but above all, he wanted them to be good Christians. If you had been with him you would have seen him laugh merrily when the occasion offered, speak out boldly when the need arose, maintaining a brave outward show of royal splendor and dignity (like another Solomon), and in the next moment you would have seen him serving the poor at the hospitals, and in short marrying civil virtue to Christian virtue, and majesty to humility. And this, in a word, should be your aim: to be no less brave for being a Christian, and to be no less Christina for being brave.” (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 189 - 190)
Much like God himself, St. Louis clearly kept faith, secured justice for the oppressed, gave food to the hungry and set captives free – among other things. In the process of being the kind of king worthy of Christ the King, Louis powerfully displayed his nobility by the manner in which he respected and promoted the dignity of all people, from the most privileged to the most impoverished.
How might we be inspired by Louis’ ability to marry majesty with generosity in our relationships with others today?
*****
“Do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you…”
But do not follow their example. Jesus’ criticism, of course, is directed at the scribes and the Pharisees. There is good news and bad news about these religious peers of Jesus. The good news? They excelled at telling other people how to live a virtuous life! The bad news? They failed to practice what they preached.
In other words, they lived life by a double standard. As Francis de sales once described, they had two hearts:
“A mild, gracious and courteous attitude toward themselves and another that was hard, severe and rigorous toward their neighbors. They had two weights: one to weight goods to their own greatest possible advantage and another to weight their neighbors to their greatest disadvantage.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 36, p. 216)
To make matters even worse, not only did the scribes and Pharisees weigh one weight to their neighbors’ greatest disadvantage, but they also laid heavy burdens on others – hard to carry – without lifting even so much as a finger to help carry them. Francis de Sales’ condemnation of living life by a double standard is short but not very sweet:“To have two weights – one heavier with which to receive and the other lighter with which to dispense – ‘is an abominable thing to the Lord.’” (Ibid)
Today, do you want to be the greatest among others in the sight of God? Then live not by two standards, but by one: God’s standard. Unlike the scribes and Pharisees, try your level best this day to treat others as you would want them to treat you. Let others see in you someone who not only talks the talk but also walks the walk.
The talk – and walk – of love.
