Spirituality Matters January 2nd - January 8th
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“Remain in him...”
In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“In Basil’s day most monks and nuns were hermits living in isolated corners of the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East. Arguing that people are ‘sociable beings, and not isolated or savage,’ he urged the hermits to form communities near towns and cities where ordinary Christians could profit from their prayers and, inspired by their example, deepen their own religious life. The monks and nuns could take in orphans and open schools, recruiting a new generation for the religious life. To this day in the Eastern Church, St. Basil’s guidelines for monks and nuns remain the standard.” (This Saint’s for You, p. 359)
In today’s selection from the First Letter of John the word “remain(s)” is used six times. The author challenges us to remain in Jesus in order that Jesus may remain in us. Among other things, “remain” is defined as “to continue in the same state or condition, to continue to be in the same place, stay or stay behind.” At first glance this definition seems to suggest that remaining in Jesus is somehow static - that’s about staying the same, that it’s about treading water, that it’s about running in place. The word “remain” feels passive. The problem is that Jesus is anything but passive; Jesus is all about action.
To remain in Jesus requires effort. To remain in Jesus requires energy. To remain in Jesus requires endurance. However, as St. Basil the Great would suggest, to “remain in him” isn’t limited to Jesus. As “sociable beings” we need something else in order to remain – that is, “to endure or persist” – with Jesus.
We need to “endure and persist” as Church. We need to “endure and persist” as community. We need to “endure persist” with one another. After all, we are the Body of Christ.
Together
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“Those who have this hope based on him make themselves pure, as he is pure...”
Have you ever looked closely at the outside of a carton of Breyer’s Ice Cream? Somewhere in the vicinity of the image of the mint leaf you will find the “Pledge of Purity.” This trademarked pledge (inaugurated in 1908 by Henry Breyer himself) personally guaranteed that each container contained the highest-quality, all natural ingredients available.
This notion of purity might be very helpful in our attempts to understand today’s selection from the First Letter of John. After all, who of us can claim to be “pure?” Who us can claim to be perfect? Who of us can claim to be without blemish? With the exception of Mary, the Mother of Jesus, such “purity” is reserved for God, and for God alone.
So, where does that leave us?
Well, if being “pure” is about being all-natural, we can strive for that. If being “pure” is about being real, we can strive for that. If being “pure” is about being authentic, we can strive for that. If being “pure” is about being transparent, we can strive for that. If being “pure” is about being guileless, we can strive for that. If being “pure” is about avoiding artificiality in any/all its forms, we can strive for that. If being “pure” is about being unadulterated, we can strive for that. In short, if being “pure” is about being true to whom God wants us to be - no more, no less – we can strive for that.
Look at the life of Jesus himself. He was all-natural. He was real. He was authentic. He was guileless. He was unadulterated. He was transparent. He eschewed anything artificial. In short, Jesus was faithful to whom God wanted him to be: no more, no less.
Today, ow can we hope to imitate the purity of Jesus in our relationship with God, in our relationship with ourselves and in our relationships with one another? Help yourself to a heaping and healthy scoop of “Breyer’s” spirituality.
Avoid anything artificial! Keep it natural! Keep it real!
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“The person who acts in righteousness is righteous…”
In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell writes:
“For two hundred years American parochial schools have provided countless children with a solid education while teaching them how to be faithful Catholics and solid citizens. While parish schools aren’t as numerous as they once were – to say nothing of the legions of nuns that used to teach in them – the situation is not nearly as daunting as it was in Elizabeth Ann Seton’s day.”
“Mother Seton’s life coincides with the birth of the United States and the rise of the Catholic Church in America. She was born one year before the battles of Lexington and Concord, during an era when Catholicism was outlawed in every colony except Maryland. In British America, there were no bishops, no nuns, no Catholic schools and no seminaries. Only about twenty priests lived in the colonies, most living incognito and using aliases to avoid hard anti-clerical laws. For her part she grew up the daughter of a prominent, well-to-do Anglican family on Staten Island. During the revolution they walked a fine line between loyalty to the king and support for the rebels. Whatever her family’s true sympathies may have been, they were firmly in the American camp by the time George Washington was elected president: in fact, the then-fifteen-year-old Elizabeth danced at the first inaugural ball.”
“At the age on nineteen she married William Seton, a wealthy New York merchant. The couple had five children – three girls and two boys – and enjoyed a life of comfort and privilege. After eight years of marriage, William’s business went bankrupt: shortly thereafter, he contracted tuberculosis. In an attempt to save William’s health, the Setons sailed for Italy, where William had business friends, the Filicchi family. He subsequently succumbed to his chronic illness. Elizabeth and her children remained as guests of the Filicchi’s for some time. Their hosts owned a private chapel that provided Elizabeth with her first exposure to the Catholic faith, about which two things impressed this widowed mother: the Filicchi’s reverence during Mass, and the comfort they appeared to receive from confession. Upon her return to New York, Elizabeth sought out the pastor of a local Catholic Church and asked to convert to Catholicism.”
“With few exceptions, Elizabeth’s Anglican family and friends turned their backs on her following her conversion. She struggled to support herself and her children until Bishop John Carroll invited her to open a Catholic school in the archdiocese of Baltimore. It was during this time that she began to consider joining a religious community. However, the European model of religious life – living a mostly cloistered life with only a few hours per day devoted to teaching girls who boarded at the convent – did not appeal to her. With so much work begging to be done for the Catholic Church in America, Elizabeth wanted to be much more active. With Bishop Carroll’s encouragement, she founded a new community of sisters dedicated to the work of Catholic education: The Sisters of Charity. They opened America’s first parish school in Emmitsburg, Maryland on February 22, 1810.”
“The system established by Mother Seton conveyed the faith from generation to generation; it eased the passage of Catholic immigrants into American society; it served as the seedbed for countless vocations to the priesthood and the religious life. Her teaching order offered a new model for religious women – sisters who were ‘in the world, but not of it.’ In the history of the Catholic Church in America, Mother Seton was – and continues to be – an indispensible woman.” (This Saint’s for You, pp. 99-100)
Elizabeth Ann Seton was – indeed – a righteous person. She did the right thing by founding a community of religious women who dedicated their lives to parochial education: teaching children – many of them immigrants – how to be faithful Catholics and solid citizens.
Today, how can we imitate her example by doing what is righteous – and being someone righteous – in the lives of others? How can we – like her – be “indispensible” citizens of the Kingdom of God?
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“They did him homage.”
“They set out. The star which they had observed at its rising went ahead of them until it came to a standstill over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house, found the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. They opened their coffers and presented him with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”
Not just today, but every day –– every hour, every moment –– we are called to follow the star that is our Lord, our Redeemer and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Each day, we are called to set out onto the road of life, following the signs of God’s love, justice, reconciliation and peace wherever we experience them. And like the astrologers in today’s Gospel, we, too, are called to “do him homage.”
Homage, an old-fashioned, quaint-sounding term, is defined in the dictionary as “special honor or respect shown publicly.”
Hmmm, perhaps not so quaint or out-of-date a notion after all!
How can we do Jesus homage? How can we publicly give him special honor and respect? What kind of gifts can we give to Christ –– and by extension, to one another –– day in and day out? Are such displays of respect limited to cross-continental treks or exotic, once-in-a-lifetime treasures?
Francis de Sales offers this advice:
“Let us not be at all eager in our work, for, in order to do it well, we must apply ourselves to it carefully indeed, but calmly and peacefully, without trusting in our labor, but rather, relying on God and God’s grace. Anxious searchings of the heart about advancing in perfection, and those endeavors to see if we are advancing, are not at all pleasing to God, and only serve to satisfy our own self-love, that subtle tormentor which grasps at so much but accomplishes so very little. One single good work, done with tranquil spirit, is worth far more than many done with anxious eagerness.”Paying homage to Jesus –– showing special respect and honor in public –– is measured less by grandiose feats and more by simple, ordinary actions performed with great attention and intention. Paying homage to Jesus is less about a multiplicity of good deeds and more about fully immersing ourselves in each moment of each day as it comes. Paying homage to Jesus is less about trying to prove to Jesus how worthy we are and more about accepting our need for God and the actions of God’s grace in our lives. Paying homage to Jesus is less about prostrating ourselves before him and more about standing up for all that is righteous, peaceful, liberating and just.
How might our experiences this day –– and especially, the people whom we encounter in those experiences –– be inviting us to pay homage to Christ? By paying special honor and respect to one another - one, single good work at a time.
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“Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit whom he gave us.”
In today’s selection from the First Letter of John the word “remain(s)” is used twice. The author challenges us to remain in Jesus in order that Jesus may remain in us. Among other things, “remain” is defined as “to continue in the same state or condition, to continue to be in the same place, stay or stay behind.” At first glance this definition seems to suggest that remaining in Jesus is somehow static. The word “remain” feels passive. The problem is that Jesus is anything but passive; Jesus is all about action.
To remain in Jesus requires effort. To remain in Jesus requires energy. To remain in Jesus requires endurance. However, as St. Basil the Great would suggest, to “remain in him” isn’t limited to Jesus. As “sociable beings” we need something else in order to remain – that is, “to endure or persist” – with Jesus.
The life and legacy of Andre Bessette offers us a concrete example of what it looks like to “remain” in the Lord:
“When Alfred Bessette came to the Holy Cross Brothers in 1870, he carried with him a note from his pastor saying, ‘I am sending you a saint.’ The Brothers found that difficult to believe. Chronic stomach pains had made it impossible for Alfred to hold a job very long and since he was a boy he had wandered from shop to shop, farm to farm, in his native Canada and in the United States, staying only until his employers found out how little work he could do. The Holy Cross Brothers were teachers and, at 25, Alfred still did not know how to read and write. It seemed as if Alfred approached the religious order out of desperation, not for a vocation.”
“He may have had no place left to go, but he believed that was because this was the place he felt he should have been all along. The Holy Cross Brothers took him into the novitiate but soon found out what everybody else had learned - as hard as Alfred (now Brother Andre) wanted to work, he simply wasn't strong enough. They asked him to leave the order, but Andre, out of desperation, appealed to a visiting bishop who promised him that he would intercede on his behalf with the brothers so that Andre could stay and take his vows.”
“After his vows, Brother Andre was sent to Notre Dame College in Montreal (a school for boys aged seven to twelve) as a porter. His responsibilities were to answer the door, to welcome guests, find the people they were visiting, wake up those in the school, and deliver mail. Through kindness, caring, and devotion, Brother Andre helped many souls experience healing – in many documented cases, including physical healings.”
“As if that were not enough, in 1904 Bro. Andre received permission to construct a small chapel dedicated to St. Joseph, to whom he had a life-long devotion. By the 1930’s he had inaugurated the construction of a basilica on the highest point of the city on Montreal, but the Depression all-but-brought the project to a halt. At ninety-years old he told his co-workers to place a statue of St. Joseph in the unfinished, unroofed basilica. Brother Andre died soon after on January 6, 1937 and didn't live to see the work on the basilica completed. But in Brother Andre's mind it never would be completed because he always saw more ways to express his devotion and to heal others. As long as he lived, the man who had trouble keeping work for himself had never stopped working for God.”
On December 19, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI promulgated a decree recognizing a second miracle at Blessed André's intercession and on October 17, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI formally declared sainthood for Blessed Andre. (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=18)
Much as Bro. Andre did, we need to be active and tenacious in our daily attempts to “remain in the Lord.” We need to “endure and persist” as Church. We need to “endure and persist” as community. We need to “endure and persist” for God and with one another.
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“In this we love: not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us.”
In attempting to describe the ‘love of God,’ Francis de Sales wrote the following in his Treatise on the Love of God:
“This is not a love which natural powers – whether of angels or of men – can produce. It is the Holy Spirit who pours it into our hearts. Just as our souls which give life to our bodies do not take their origin from our bodies but are placed in our bodies by God’s natural providence, so also charity – that is, the love of God – which gives life to our hearts is not extracted from our hearts but is poured into them like a heavenly liquor by the supernatural providence of His divine majesty…We don’t love our parents because they belong to us; we love them because we belong to them. It is thus that we love and desire God: not that He may become our good, but because He is our good; not that He may become ours but because we are His. It is not as though He exists for us: we exist for Him.” (Living Jesus, p. 207; 209-210)
When we describe the “love of God,” we need to be crystal clear that the “love of God” is not about something we do for God. No, the “love of God” is all about God, and God’s love for us. That said, it says a great deal about God when we consider that God would share this most divine of gifts with us. What return can we possibly make to God for empowering each of us with so wonderful a gift? The truth is we can’t return it. However, we can share it!
With one another today and every day!
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“There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment…”
And yet, we hear in the Book of Proverbs (9:10): “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Solomon is warning his son that no matter how much knowledge you gain, unless you fear - or stand in total awe of - God, you will not know how to use it. This theme runs through most of the book of Proverbs. It is God who establishes what is moral, what is right and what is good. And if you have no plumb line for your behavior external to yourself, you are like a rudderless ship, driven by changing tides and winds of your emotions. In that case, your knowledge will not do you -- or anyone else -- much good. You will cause far more disaster than good.
Keep in mind the key word is: beginning. Even the loftiest of projects has to start somewhere. In a perfect world, we would always do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do. Insofar as this world is anything but perfect, however, sometimes we do the right thing for fear of being punished, for fear of getting into trouble or for fear of losing out. St. Jane de Chantal once remarked: “The way of fear closes the heart and only ends in making us avoid evil and do good from the motive of being afraid of reprimands and penances.” (Select Salesian Subjects, p. 127, 0532) However, if our pursuit of wisdom never grows beyond fear, we are doomed to failure. Spiritual maturity requires that we grow beyond fear - that we eventually leave fear behind.
Francis de Sales employs a powerful image to make this point. Referencing the famous scene in which Peter is invited by Jesus to walk upon tempestuous waters, Francis de Sales observed:
“Behold St. Peter. Fear is a greater evil than the evil that is feared. It would have caused him to perish in the waters had not his Master saved him. O child of little faith, fear not! You are walking on the waters – in the midst of the wind and waves – but it is with Jesus. If fear seizes you, cry loudly, ‘Lord, save me or I perish!’ He will extend His hand to you; clasp it firmly and continue on joyously.” (Words of the Saints: St. Francis de Sales, p. 114)
Fear may be the beginning of wisdom, but as we grow in wisdom, we find less use for fear. Where there is love – the fullness of love – there is no room or need – for fear at all. God is love and there is no fear in Him.
Today, what extent can the same be said of us?
