*****
“Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him.”
Let's admit it - when something good happens to us we feel that somehow we deserve it. The nine “lepers” in today's Gospel likely felt the same way - they asked Jesus for mercy, which in the Middle Eastern culture meant, “Do what you can for us.” They received from Jesus what they knew - by his reputation, at least - he could do for them. However, let's look at this Gospel in the context of what came before and after this event.
Last week, Jesus told us that when we do what is expected of us we have done no more than our duty. The author even goes so far as to have Jesus say, “We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done.” This statement seems to be in stark contrast to this week's Gospel which exhorts us to be grateful when someone else does “what they are obligated to do.” One might say culturally, therefore, that since Jesus could, he should. Next week's Gospel proclaims the “need to pray always and not to lose heart.”
In last week’s Gospel, the apostles asked for “an increase of faith.” Next week, Jesus will seem quite disturbed about people's faith when He says, “And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
A common Western notion of illness is that it is more of an impediment that prevents us from being active and engaged in life. In the Mediterranean culture, illness removes a person from status and disturbs kinship patterns. People who suffer from the skin problem called “leprosy” are excluded from the worshipping community. This human experience was much more depressing than the skin lesions (John Pilch, The Cultural Dictionary of the Bible). Jesus made all ten “clean,” but “one of them...saw that he was healed...” His skin condition was not only gone; but more importantly to the Middle Eastern man, he was reunited to the community.
Saint Francis de Sales discusses the “inspirations” toward faith in Book II of his Treatise on the Love of God:
“The inspiration (that) comes like a sacred wind to impel us into the air of holy love; it takes hold of our will and moves it by a sentiment of heavenly delight. All this...is done in us but without us, for it is God's favor that prepares us in this way. That very inspiration and favor which has caught hold of us mingles its action with our consent, animates our feeble movements by its own strength and enlivens our frail cooperation by the might of its operation. Thus, will it aid us, lead us on, and accompany us from love to love until we attain to the act of most holy faith required for our conversion.”
Did this inspiration happen to the man who came back? What does the Gospel say? It says, “He turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him.” Was he merely grateful for being freed from a skin disease, as the others were cleansed? No, his heartfelt gratitude seems to go much deeper - in addition to getting his life back he was given the “inspiration” toward faith. He consented to that inspiration and in doing so was full of praise for Jesus! Then Jesus said to the man, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has been your salvation.”
How strong is our faith? Regardless of our answer, today consider this question: how grateful are we for a God who always loves us, regardless of the strength – or weakness – of that faith?
*****
“Brothers and sisters, we are children not of the slave woman but of the freeborn woman.”
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”), Saint 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, in order 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 very 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 Saint 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 aren’t 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 to handle with our singular personalities! Indeed, it is discouraging when we don’t live up to God’s standards or our own. Indeed, it is frustrating to make what often times appears to be little progress in the spiritual life. Indeed, there’s more good that we should do and more evil that we should avoid. However, rather than drive yourself crazy in the desire to be sons and daughters of the “freeborn woman,” gently – and firmly – follow Saint Francis de Sales’ advice:
“Stir up your courage. Arm yourself with patience that we should have toward ourselves.”
And - of course - with the patience that we should have toward one another.
*****
“Stand firm: do not submit again to the yolk of slavery…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Saint Francis de Sales wrote:
“Our free will is never so free as when it is a slave to God’s will, just as it is never so servile as when it serves our own will. It never has so much life as when it dies to self, and never so much death as when it lives to itself. We have the liberty to do good and evil, but to choose evil is not to use but to abuse this liberty. Let us renounce such wretched liberty and subject forever our free will to the rule of heavenly love. Let us become slaves to dilection, whose serfs are happier than kings. If our souls should ever will to use their liberty against our resolutions to serve God eternally and without reserve, Oh, then, for love of God, let us sacrifice our free will and make it die to itself so that it may live in God! A man who out of self-love wishes to keep his freedom in this world shall lose it in the next world, and he who shall lose it in this world for the love of God shall keep it for that same love in the next world. He who keeps his liberty in this world shall find it a serf and a slave in the other world, whereas he who makes it serve the cross in this world shall have it free in the other world. For there, when he is absorbed in the enjoyment of God’s goodness, his liberty will be converted into love and love into liberty, a liberty infinitely sweet. Without effort, without pain, and without any struggle, we shall unchangingly and forever love the Creator and Savior of our souls.” (Treatise 12: 10, pp- 277-278)
The Salesian tradition understands the essence of liberty as the freedom that comes from knowing – from believing – that God loves us. The Salesian tradition also understands that to substitute anything for God’s love for us – regardless of how attractive or promising it may appear and/or present itself to be – leads to a life of enslavement.
Today – just today – you can live free or you can live enslaved.
Which do you choose?
*****
In her book, Heart Speaks to Heart: The Salesian Tradition, Wendy Wright quotes Father Brisson regarding the challenge to “Reprint the Gospel” in all aspects of our lives. We read:
“It is not enough to read the Gospel in order to understand it. We must live it. The Gospel is the true story of the Word of God living among men. We must produce a New Edition of this Gospel among men by prayer, work, preaching and sacrifice…”
“First, we reprint the Gospel by prayer, through which we give ourselves to God in every way without reserve.”
“Second, we reprint the Gospel by means of work. We must reprint the Gospel and reprint it page by page without omitting anything…In our lives there is always some manual labor. There is a library to keep in order, a helping hand to be given. A little gardening to be done, a little tidying up or arranging to be done…God has attached great graces to manual labor.”
“The third way for us to reprint the Gospel is by preaching. All of us should preach. Those who work with their hands as well as those who are occupied with exterior works, those who conduct classes and those who teach by example, those who direct souls as well as those assigned to the ministry of the pulpit – all of us should preach. We should preach in practical ways. We should teach our neighbors, if not by our words, at least by our actions.”
“The fourth thing in the Gospel is sacrifice. The Word made Flesh prayed in order to teach us how to pray. He worked. He preached. Finally, He suffered. These are the four conditions necessary to reprint the Gospel…” (pp. 145-146)
There is any number of ways in which God may ask us to reprint the Gospel: in prayer, work, preaching, and sacrifice. Are you ready? Are you willing?
How can we reprint the Gospel today?
*****
“Woe” is defined as great sorrow or distress. Synonyms include misery, sorrow, distress, wretchedness, sadness, unhappiness, heartache, heartbreak despondency, despair, depression, regret, gloom, melancholy, adversity, misfortune, disaster, suffering, and hardship.
The Prince of “woe” is Satan himself. Francis de Sales wrote:
“The evil one is pleased with sadness and melancholy because he himself is sad and melancholy and will be so for all eternity. Hence, he desires that everyone should be like himself.” (IDL, IV, 12, p. 254)
In today’s Gospel Jesus points out to the scribes, Pharisees, and scholars of the law how they bring “woe” to the lives of countless others. In addition, Jesus clearly implies that they themselves will experience “woe” down the road - there will be a day of reckoning for the many ways that they have brought great sorrow and despair to countless others while treating themselves as the religious and socially privileged of the day. Of course, rather than use their power and privilege to help others, the scribes, Pharisees, and scholars of the law maintained the status quo for themselves and planned/plotted to be a source of great suffering and distress in Jesus’ life, too.
Even on our best days, we need to be wary of being sources of “woe” in the lives of others – most especially, the people we love the most. Beyond that, what steps might we take just this day to become a remedy for “woe” in the lives of others?
*****
“In Christ, we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will.”
Today we celebrate the life and legacy of Saint Callistus. In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell observes:
“By all appearances, Callistus didn’t have a prayer of ever becoming a saint. The slave of a Roman Christian, Callistus displayed a talent with numbers. When his master established a kind of bank for fellow Christians, Callistus was charged with managing the accounts. It soon became apparent that Callistus would not measure up to expectations: he made bad investments and pilfered other monies outright. Angry and humiliated, the master sent Callistus to work turning the stone wheel at a gristmill.”
“Meanwhile, anxious depositors in the bank – hoping to recover even a portion of their lost savings – convinced the bank owner to release Callistus if the unscrupulous slave vowed to recover the funds he’d invested with Jewish merchants. Rising to the challenge, one Saturday morning Callistus interrupted the Sabbath service at Rome’s synagogue and demanded that the merchants repay the money. Not surprisingly, an uproar ensued, Callistus was attacked and the brawl spilled out into the streets. Callistus was subsequently arrested and then shipped off to work in the mines on Sardinia. But soon he was back in Rome, released in a general amnesty for Christian prisoners; one can imagine the groans of dismay among the city’s Christians and Jews alike when Callistus returned once again like the proverbial bad penny!”
“Aware of the controversy surrounding this slave, Pope Victor interceded on Callistus’ behalf. He offered Callistus a stipend and set him up in a small house outside the city’s walls, away from controversy. During this time - perhaps under the pope’s influence - the pagan slave’s conversion began. The pope gave the new convert a job supervising a number of catacombs; hence, Callistus’ position as the patron saint of cemetery workers. Later ordained a priest, Callistus served as an advisor to Pope Zephyrinus. But greater things were yet to come: Callistus himself was eventually elected pope! Following a brief five-year pontificate he died a martyr, beaten to death in the street by a pagan mob.”
As Paul reminds us, each of us has a destiny. Each and every one of us is chosen to continue God’s work in a unique and unrepeatable way. A pagan slave who was considered by just about everyone as being nothing but trouble died as a slave of Christ – and as pope, no less!
Today, how might we accomplish the things of God in conformity with God’s sometimes unpredictable Will?
*****
“May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call.”
Today we celebrate the life and legacy of Saint Teresa of Avila. In his book This Saint’s for You, Thomas Craughwell observes:
“Every day – all day long – God pours his grace upon the world. Those who accept it – who cooperate with God’s will – draw closer to the Lord, as in the case of Saint Teresa of Avila, the patron of souls in need of divine grace. The easygoing life of the Carmelite convent she entered was not conducive to the contemplative life. So, she began planning a new branch of the Carmelites, one that would bring nuns (and friars) back to the order’s original commitment to a life of austerity and deep prayer…Saint Teresa’s legacy is her collection of spiritual writings. She was the first Catholic woman to write systematically about prayer and interior life. In 1970, upon naming her a Doctor of the Church, Pope Paul VI praised Teresa as ‘a teacher of remarkable depth.’”
Insofar as Teresa died in 1582, her writings were well known by the “Gentleman Saint.” In a letter to Madame de Chantal (1605), Francis de Sales wrote:
“The practice of the presence of God taught by Mother Teresa in chapters 29 and 30 of The Way of Perfection is excellent, and I think it amounts to the same as I explained to you when I wrote that God was in our spirit as though he were the heart of our spirit and in our heart as the spirit which breathes life into it, and that David called God: the God of his heart. Use this boldly and often for it is most useful. May God be the soul and spirit of our heart forever...” (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 160 – 161)
The eyes of the heart of Saint Teresa were certainly enlightened by the call of Jesus Christ in her life. She, in turn, enlightened the hearts of countless other Christians through the hope contained in her writings.
Today, following her example, how might the eyes of our hearts be enlightened? How might we enlighten the eyes of the hearts of others?
