*****
“Through his suffering my servant shall justify many.”
Following the admonition of Christ that we should be the servants of others would not sound so daunting if it were not for one little word.
Suffering.
Jesus is clear: to serve is to suffer and to suffer is to serve. This statement begs the question: did Jesus serve because he liked pain?
Consider the meaning of the word ‘suffering.’ The American Heritage Dictionary describes suffering as “to feel pain or distress; sustain loss, injury, harm or punishment.” Jesus certainly experienced all these things in a big way. In this regard, we have in Christ one who can sympathize with us. (Hebrews)
But suffering is more than simply experiencing pain. The same dictionary directs the reader to consider the roots of the English word servant, and therein we find a powerful revelation: in its root meaning, to suffer is to carry, to bear, to “bear children.”
Suffering is not simply the ability to experience pain. No, suffering is the willingness to forbear, to persevere, to carry on in doing what is right and just, what is healthy and holy even in the face of opposition or resistance. Suffering is the pain that comes from efforts at bringing forth life in the lives of others.
This kind of suffering is not powerless passivity. This suffering – divine suffering – is about being proactive. This suffering – this service – is a matter of choice: the choice to love.
Jesus did not love to suffer. Jesus suffered precisely because he was willing to love. Jesus suffered – he persevered – in his commitment to being a source of love in the lives of others.
That is what made Jesus a servant. That is what can make us true servants. Like Jesus, while our service will be marked with suffering, it is far more important that it be marked with love.
*****
“The Lord stood by me and gave me strength...”
Our first reading from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy reminds us that being either an apostle, a disciple or an evangelist brings its share of troubles. Including being betrayed! Paul cites at least three occasions in which he felt that he was – as we say so often these days – thrown under the bus. First, Demas deserted him; second, Alexander the coppersmith did him great harm; and third, no one showed up on Paul’s behalf when he attempted to defend himself in court. While he attributes his ability to get through these rough patches in his life to the Lord standing by him and giving him strength, it certainly did not hurt that at least one person other than the Lord – St. Luke – remained faithful to Paul throughout his ordeals.
St. Francis de Sales wrote about the pain that comes from being betrayed by those closest to us. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he wrote:
“To be despised, criticized or accused by evil men is a slight thing to a courageous man, but to be criticized, denounced and treated badly by good men - by our own friends and relations – is the test of virtue. Just as the pain of a bee is much more painful than that of a fly, so the wrongs we suffer from good men and the attacks they make are far harder to bear than those we suffer from others. Yet it often happens that good people – all with good intentions – because of conflicting ideas stir up great persecutions and attacks on one another.” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 3, pp. 128 – 129)
Paul found it exceedingly difficult to swallow betrayals at the hands of those with whom he lived and worked without becoming embittered about it. However, it seems that Paul was able to work through these betrayals because of the loyalty of two people in his life: the Lord and Luke.
Like Luke, how might we help another person work through the experience of betrayal? How might we – through our willingness to practice fidelity – give them the strength to overcome their pain and discouragement?
How? By standing with them today!
*****
“Through the obedience of the one the many will be made righteous…”
Today the Church reflects upon the ultimate sacrifice made by the Jesuit Martyrs of North America. Warning: this account if not for the faint of heart. (http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1173)
“Isaac Jogues (1607-1646) and his companions were the first martyrs of the North American continent officially recognized by the Church. As a young Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, a man of learning and culture, taught literature in France. He gave up that career to work among the Huron Indians in the New World, and in 1636 he and his companions - under the leadership of John de Brébeuf - arrived in Quebec. The Hurons were constantly warring with the Iroquois, and in a few years Father Jogues was captured by the Iroquois and imprisoned for thirteen months. An unexpected chance for escape came to Isaac Jogues through the Dutch, and he returned to France, bearing the marks of his sufferings. Several fingers had been cut, chewed or burnt off. Pope Urban VIII gave him permission to offer Mass with his mutilated hands: ‘It would be shameful that a martyr of Christ be not allowed to drink the Blood of Christ.’ Welcomed home as a hero, Father Jogues might have sat back, thanked God for his safe return and died peacefully in his homeland. But his zeal led him back once more to the fulfillment of his dreams. In a few months he sailed for his missions among the Hurons. In 1646 he and Jean de Lalande, who had offered his services to the missioners, set out for Iroquois country in the belief that a recently signed peace treaty would be observed. They were captured by a Mohawk war party, and on October 18 Father Jogues was tomahawked and beheaded. Jean de Lalande was killed the next day at Ossernenon, a village near Albany, New York.”
“The first of the Jesuit missionaries to be martyred was René Goupil who, with Lalande, had offered his services as an oblate. He was tortured along with Isaac Jogues in 1642 and was tomahawked for having made the Sign of the Cross on the brow of some children.”
“Jean de Brébeuf (1593-1649): Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit who came to Canada at the age of 32 and labored there for 24 years. He went back to France when the English captured Quebec (1629) and expelled the Jesuits but returned to his missions four years later. Although medicine men blamed the Jesuits for a smallpox epidemic among the Hurons, Jean remained with them. He composed catechisms and a dictionary in Huron and saw seven thousand converted before his death. He was captured by the Iroquois and died after four hours of extreme torture at Sainte Marie, near Georgian Bay, Canada.”
“Father Anthony Daniel, working among Hurons who were gradually becoming Christian, was killed by Iroquois on July 4, 1648. His body was thrown into his chapel, which was set on fire. Gabriel Lalemant had taken a fourth vow—to sacrifice his life to the Indians. He was horribly tortured to death along with Father Brébeuf. Father Charles Garnier was shot to death as he baptized children and catechumens during an Iroquois attack. Father Noel Chabanel was killed before he could answer his recall to France. He had found it exceedingly hard to adapt to mission life. He could not learn the language, the food and life of the Indians revolted him, plus he suffered spiritual dryness during his whole stay in Canada. Yet he made a vow to remain until death in his mission.”
“These eight Jesuit martyrs of North America were canonized in 1930.”
The sacrifice of these Jesuit martyrs gives radical witness to the truth that life is not about possessions – rather, life is about been self-possessed enough to devote oneself to being generous. In their case, through making the ultimate sacrifice.
Through the obedience of these eight, many more were made righteous. How might we build on the witness of their generosity in our little corners of the world today?
*****
“You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come…”
We all know the expression, “Hindsight is 20-20.” As we know from our own experience, often it is much easier to recognize the truth about something hours, days, weeks and perhaps even years after the fact. While hindsight is better than having no sight at all, there are certain limitations associated with recognizing how God has been active in one’s life only after further reflection.
This pattern gets played out time and time again in numerous accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. People did not seem to recognize that the Son of Man was standing right in front of them. Put another way, insofar as they were not prepared to recognize who Jesus was before he appeared, they failed to recognize him when he arrived! The aim of the Spiritual Directory – the goal of the Direction of Intention – is to help us to acquire foresight when it comes to recognizing the activity and presence of God in our lives. Living in each present moment challenges us to anticipate the variety of ways in which God may visit, speak to or inspire us just this day and to recognize God’s divine activity and presence as it actually occurs in each and every present moment - and not merely after the fact.
In the movie Field of Dreams, Doctor “Moonlight” Graham (played by actor Burt Lancaster) says to Ray Kinsella, “You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day.”
May God give us the awareness that we need to be prepared for the most significant moments - and each moment - in our lives, each and every day. But then, when you consider that we have only a limited number of moments allotted to us on this earth, shouldn’t every moment be a significant moment?
*****
“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”
In a film released in 2004, Denzel Washington stars as John Creasy, a despondent former CIA operative/Force Recon Marine officer-turned-bodyguard. Creasey gets a shot at redemption when he is hired to protect the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Mexico City. When the nine-year-old girl is kidnapped and held for ransom, Washington’s character will stop at nothing to get the young girl back, even to the point (spoiler alert!) of giving his life in exchange for hers.
The name of the film is Man on Fire.
Jesus Christ clearly was a man on fire. He tells us so in today’s Gospel selection from Luke. All throughout the three years of his public ministry, Jesus demonstrated again and again to us that he would stop at nothing to proclaim the power and promise of the Kingdom of God – forgiving the sinner, healing the blind, lame and leprous, finding the lost, raising the lowly, humbling the proud and challenging the haughty. His efforts not only won him many friends, but also made him more than a few enemies. Undaunted by the challenges of his vocation, Jesus remained faithful to the work of redemption, even to the point of giving his very life for others.
Jesus wants us to be men and women on fire with the love of God and neighbor. Jesus wants us – his brothers and sisters – to be unrelenting in demonstrating in our own lives the power and promise of the Kingdom of God.
How can we get “fired up” for the sake of the Gospel today?
*****
“For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”
You can feel the frustration in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Redeemed as he was by Jesus Christ, not only did Paul fail to do many of the things that he knew that he should have done, but he also did many of the things that he knew that he should not have done. In another place Paul describes this disconnect as if having two men battling inside of him, each wrestling for dominance over the other.
In a letter to Peronne-Marie de Chatel (one of the four original members of the nascent Visitation congregation at Annecy who, notwithstanding her virtues and gifts, nevertheless experienced “discouragement, scruples and even moments of very human impatience and irritation”), Francis de Sales wrote:
“You are right when you say there are two people in you. One person is a bit touchy, resentful and ready to flare up if anyone crosses her; this is the daughter of Eve and therefore bad-tempered. The other person fully intends to belong totally to God and who, to be all His, wants to be simply humble and humbly gentle toward everyone…this is the daughter of the glorious Virgin Mary and therefore of good disposition. These two daughters of different mothers fight each other and the good-for-nothing one is so mean that the good one has a hard time defending herself; afterward, the poor dear thinks that she has been beaten and that the wicked one is stronger than she. Not at all! The wicked one is not stronger than you but is more brazen, perverse, unpredictable and stubborn and when you go off crying, she is incredibly happy because that’s just so much time wasted, and she is satisfied to make you lose time when she is unable to make you lose eternity.”
“Do not be ashamed of all this, my dear daughter, any more than St. Paul who confesses that there were two men in him – one rebellious toward God, and the other obedient to God. Stir up your courage. Arm yourself with the patience that we should have toward ourselves.” (Letters of Spiritual Direction, p. 164-165)
Of course, there are not really two people battling inside of us trying to see who will win out! Thank God for that, because most days we have more than enough in handling our singular personalities! Of course, it is discouraging when we do not live up to God’s standards or even our own. Of course, it is frustrating to make what often appears to be little progress in the spiritual life. Of course, there’s more good that we should do and more evil that we should avoid. Rather than drive yourself crazy, gently – and firmly – follow Francis de Sales’ advice: “Stir up your courage. Arm yourself with patience that we should have toward ourselves.” And - of course - with one another.
*****
“And he told them this parable…”
In his commentary on this selection from the Gospel of Luke, William Barclay makes the following observations:
“The parable teaches that nothing which only takes out can survive. The fig tree was drawing strength and sustenance from the soil and in return was producing nothing. That was precisely its sin. In the last analysis, there are two kinds of people in this world – those who take out more than they put in, and those who put in more than they take out.”
“In one sense we are all in debt to life. We came into it at the peril of someone else’s life, and we would never have survived without the care of those who loved us. We have inherited a Christian legacy and a freedom which we did not create. There is laid on us the duty of handling things on better than we found them. ‘Die when I may’, said Abraham Lincoln, ‘I want it said of me that I plucked a weed and planted a flower wherever I thought a flower would grow’.”
Not to put to fine a point on it, but ask yourself the question: Am I a person who takes more out of life than I put in, or am I a person who puts more into life than I take out?
