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“The Lord is my light and my salvation.”
The Book of Genesis and the Gospel of Luke describe two very powerful scenes in which God's will is demonstrated in clear and unmistakable ways. Abram is presented with the mysterious smoking brazier as a sign of God's covenant with him and his descendants, while Peter, John, and James witness the transfiguration of Jesus.
It is very difficult to miss the message because these scenes are direct manifestations and expressions of God's will, desire, hope, and dream that all live a God-centered life on earth and experience the fullness of that life forever in heaven.
Would that God's will were always so cut and dry! Would that we could always easily discern God's will for us and for others! Would that we could know precisely what God wants from us in every moment with absolute clarity! Would that God spoke to everybody through transfiguring light or smoking braziers!
Of course, for most of us, this simply doesn't happen. Absent these kinds of communications, how, then, are we to discern God's will for us? Francis de Sales suggests a handful of things that can help us to recognize God’s will in our lives…and how that will should affect our relationships with others.
First, look to the Ten Commandments and other counsels found in Scripture; consider the tradition, the teaching, the practices, and authority of the Church; pay attention to the duties and responsibilities that accompany you in your state and stage of life. So, for example, if you are married, working, and raising a family, God's will for you would include such things as keeping the Sabbath, honoring your own father and mother, nourishing your relationship with your spouse, providing for the needs, and teaching of your children, doing your job in a gentle, just and ethical manner, balancing the demands of work and leisure, of home and the office, etc., etc.
Second, look to the circumstances, situations, and relationships in which you find yourself each day, each hour, each moment. Pay attention to how the demands and needs of others might be expressions of God's will for you.
Third, deepen your ability to listen. Pay attention not only to what is going on around you, but also to what is going on inside of you. Learn how to identify and filter out the external and internal static in your life. Prayer and participation in the liturgical/sacramental life of the Church are two powerful allies in this effort.
Fourth, develop and nurture solid spiritual friendships. Just as God's will is never expressed in a vacuum, don't try to figure out everything all by yourself. Turn to the advice and counsel of trusted friends when trying to determine what God wants you to do in any given situation.
Finally, be patient. Trust in God's love for you. While God's revelations are occasionally quite unmistakable, most are much more subtle and revealed gradually - indeed, over a lifetime.
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“Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful…”
What does it mean to be merciful as the Father is merciful? As the reading from the Book of the Prophet Daniel suggests, it is about being generous – by being loyal. Daniel wrote: “Lord, great and awesome, you who keep your merciful covenant toward those people who love you and observe your commandments!” Daniel then proceeds to remind his audience that the Lord also keeps his merciful covenant with those people who rebel against God’s commandments and laws through sin, evil, and wickedness. Of course – as we know from our own experience - there is something of both within each one of us – we who both obey and disobey God’s commandments. And still, for all that, God remains loyal to us in good times, in bad times, and in all the times in between. God stands by us in all things. God loves us no matter what. God is, after all, “compassion and forgiveness.”
Of course, God’s mercy, generosity, and fidelity come with some pretty high expectations. God’s forgiveness should lead us to practice compassion, not complacency. As God doesn’t judge us, so we should not judge others! As God doesn’t condemn us, so we should not condemn others! As God forgives us, so we should forgive others! As God gives to us, so we should give to others! The measure with which we measure to others should measure up to how generously God measures to us…in all kinds of times, places, and situations!
Would you like to be “great and awesome” in the eyes of God? Then try to do your level best to be merciful to others today as God is clearly merciful to you!
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“Let us set things right…”
In this selection from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah offers us some particularly appropriate and timely advice as we continue to journey through Lent. We are challenged to:
• Wash ourselves clean
• To put aside our misdeeds
• To cease doing evil
• To learn to do good
• To be willing to obey In short, we are called to do the right thing. Of course, we know from our own lived experience that as hard as we try to do the right thing, we don’t always get it right. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales offers us a practical example,
“I constantly advise you that prayers directed against and pressing anger must always be said calmly and peaceably, and not violently. Thus rule must be observed in all steps taken against evil. However, as soon as you see that you are guilty of a wrathful deed, correct the fault right away by an act of meekness toward the person with whom you were angry. It is a sovereign remedy against lying to contradict the untruth upon the spot as soon as we realize that we have told one. So also we must repair our anger instantly by a contrary act of meekness. Fresh wounds are quickest healed, as the saying goes…” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 8, pp. 148-149)
What is the moral? When it comes to doing good, we can always try our level best to make things right at a later time in the event that we don’t always get them right the first time. Lent might be a perfect time to do just that!
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“What do you wish…?”
“What’s in it for me?” On some level that’s essentially what the mother of James and John is asking Jesus in today’s Gospel story. Whether her sons put her up to it or she came up with it all by herself, she is basically asking, “Why should my sons follow you? What’s the pay-off?” On the face of it, her request is perhaps reasonable, given Jesus’ prediction of his own falling out with the chief priests and the scribes that will lead to his being condemned, mocked, scourged, and crucified. She wants some guarantee that her boys will have something to show for their trouble that she intuits will invariably come.
And really – what mother wouldn’t be concerned?
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“We must often recall that our Lord has saved us by his suffering and endurance and that we must work out our salvation by sufferings and afflictions, enduring with all possible meekness the injuries, denials, and discomforts we meet.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 3, p. 128)
There is no way around it – the experience of enduring injuries, denials and discomforts is part-and-parcel of the life that comes with drinking the chalice from which Jesus drinks. Following Jesus – he who is the Way, the Truth and the Life – isn’t all smiles and sunshine. And somewhere deep down inside each of us, the mother of James and John whispers variations of her question to Jesus: “Why are you following Him? What’s in it for you? What do you hope to get out of this?”
“Must good be repaid with evil?” Doesn't it sure feel that way sometimes? Be that as it may, why do we continue to follow Jesus? Why do we drink from the chalice from which He drank? Today, ask yourself the question: “What’s in it for me?”
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“Remember that you received what was good during your lifetime…”
The parable in today’s Gospel does not require a great deal of explanation. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it is a warning - a stern warning. Acts have consequences; choices have ramifications; decisions have results. What goes around comes around and in a very big way.
However, take note of one detail in the story: the rich man who “dressed in purple and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day” is not condemned because of his good fortune – he is condemned because of his failure to share his good fortune with someone less fortunate.
Lent is not only a good time for us to reflect upon all the good – all the blessings – that God continues to shower upon us, but Lent is also a good time to consider how good we are – or aren’t – at sharing our goods with others.
~ OR ~
“Patrick was born in Britain of a Romanized family. At age 16 he was torn by Irish raiders from the villa of his father, Calpurnius, a deacon and minor local official, and carried into slavery in Ireland, where, during six bleak years spent as a herdsman, he turned with fervor to his faith. Hearing at last in a dream that the ship in which he was to escape was ready, he fled his master and found passage to Britain. There he came near to starvation and suffered a second brief captivity before he was reunited with his family. Thereafter, he may have paid a short visit to the Continent.”
“The best-known passage in the Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, tells of a dream, after his return to Britain, in which one Victoricus delivered him a letter headed, “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, he seemed to hear a certain company of Irish beseeching him to walk once more among them. “Deeply moved,” he says, “I could read no more.” Nevertheless, because of the shortcomings of his education, he was reluctant for a long time to respond to the call. Even on the eve of embarkation for Ireland, he was beset by doubts of his fitness for the task. Once in the field, however, his hesitations vanished. Utterly confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. In diplomatic fashion he brought gifts to a kinglet here and a lawgiver there but accepted none from any. On at least one occasion, he was cast into chains. On another, he addressed with lyrical pathos a last farewell to his converts who had been slain or kidnapped by the soldiers of Coroticus.”
“The phenomenal success of Patrick's mission is not, however, the full measure of his personality. Since his writings have come to be better understood, it is increasingly recognized that, despite their occasional incoherence, they mirror a truth and simplicity of the rarest quality. Not since St. Augustine of Hippo had any religious diarist bared his inmost soul as Patrick did in his writings. As D.A. Binchy, the most austerely critical of Patrician (i.e., of Patrick) scholars, has put it, “The moral and spiritual greatness of the man shines through every stumbling sentence of his rustic Latin.”
(http://www.biography.com/people/st-patrick-9434729?page=1) We stand in awe of the level of Patrick’s generosity in answering God’s call for him to evangelize the people of a land in which he himself was once imprisoned! The measure with which Patrick measured was clearly measured back to him thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold if you consider the impact that his missionary efforts had on both the people of Ireland in his day and throughout all of continental Europe long after his death. Isn’t it amazing the difference that one person can make by measuring generously to others? How might we imitate Patrick’s generosity through our willingness to be generous to all those we meet today? How can our lives make a positive impact on the lives of others today?*****
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“Now, our glorious St. Joseph was endowed with four great virtues (constancy, perseverance, strength, and valor) and practiced them marvelously well. As regards his constancy, did he not display it wonderfully when seeing Our Lady with child, and, not knowing how that could be, his mind was tossed with distress, perplexity, and trouble? Yet, despite all, he never complained, he was never harsh or ungracious towards his holy Spouse, but remained just as gentle and respectful in his demeanor as he had ever been…” (Living Jesus, p.184)
Joseph experienced more than a little turmoil in his role as husband and father of the Holy Family. However, being the just and righteous man that he was, Joseph never took out his frustrations on his wife or on his son. Rather, he accepted life’s ups and downs as expressions of God’s will for him.
And so, we pray: God grant us the grace to imitate the example of St. Joseph. Help us to take whatever comes in life without taking it out on others – especially on those we love the most.
