*****
“Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. Should a person nourish anger against others and expect healing from the Lord?”
Have you ever been upset? Have you ever been angry? Have you ever been livid? Of course you have! Anger (with its many faces and facets) is a fact of life; sometimes, in fact, a very volatile fact of life. Like any emotion, it cannot be denied or suppressed.
As emotions go, anger itself is not sinful any more than joy, fear or happiness would be considered sinful. However, how we deal with anger - or fail to deal with anger - determines whether our anger results in virtue, or vice - whether it ultimately results in something constructive or something destructive.
Few of us plan to grow angry. Anger is an intense response or reaction to an injury or injustice, whether actual or perceived. As such, it often catches us off guard. Herein lies the difficulty with this “pesky” emotion. Precisely because of its spontaneity and intensity, anger can quickly get the upper hand - and even more quickly - get out of hand. Anger can become, as it were, an uninvited guest that quickly becomes the master of the house. Francis de Sales observed: “Once admitted it is with difficulty driven out again. It enters as a little twig, and in less than no time it grows big and becomes a beam.” Francis de Sales counsels us: “It is better to attempt to find a way to live without anger, rather than pretend to make a moderate or discreet use of it. As long as reason rules and peaceably exercises chastisements or corrections, people can approve and receive them. However, when accompanied by anger or rage, these same chastisements or corrections are feared rather than loved.”
For her part, Jane de Chantal suggests: “Try to calm your passions and live according to sound reason and the holy will of God.”/font> It is better to let our anger cool before making an important decision or embarking upon some action.
Most importantly, anger should not be nourished or fed. Repeatedly indulging in anger can have tragic results for us. When we brood over injuries - when we revisit old hurts and when we hold onto resentments - we cease being people who get angry and we gradually become angry people. Being addicted to anger has been described this way: it is like my drinking poison but expecting everyone else to die. While our anger may indeed hurt others on the outside, the poison that it produces eventually kills us from the inside.
Heed these words from the Book of Sirach: "Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight. Should a person nourish anger against others and expect healing from the Lord? As a stone falls back upon the one who throws it up, so a blow struck in anger injures more than one. Forgive your neighbor's injustice; then, when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven." (Sir 27: 25; 28: 2-3)
Avoid wallowing in or nourishing anger. Remember, anger is an emotion - it is not meant to become a way of life.
*****
“He humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
In a sermon preached on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Francis de Sales remarked:
“St. Paul, the outstanding master and teacher of the newborn Church, discovered in the crucified Christ the blissful wellspring of his love, the theme of his sermons, the source of his boasting, the goal of all his ambitions in this world and the anchor of all his hopes for the world to come. I had no thought, he says, of bringing you any other knowledge than that of Jesus Christ, and of him crucified. God forbid that I should make a display of anything, except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…” (Pulpit and Pew: A Study in Salesian Preaching)
The cross of Christ is the core of our lives. The cross of Christ is the central image of our faith. The cross of Christ is the path to our salvation.
Still, no less than five times in the synoptic Gospels, Jesus makes it very clear: if we wish to be his disciples, we must be willing to pick up not his cross but pick up our own cross. We are not called to carry his cross, but ours. Put another way, we imitate the power and the promise of the cross of Christ precisely by being willing to embrace the crosses — the challenges, the burdens, the setbacks — that are part and parcel of our lives.
In short, the cross that we carry is the need to be ourselves — not somebody else — and to take all that comes with that effort.
Many of the crosses we carry are specific to the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. Francis de Sales offers the following examples of the kinds of crosses that we might be asked to carry.
“To the pastors of the Church I offer a cross of care and labor, a shepherd’s toil to protect, to feed, to correct and perfect the flock. This was the cross first carried by our Lord who called himself the Good Shepherd: witness his journeys, his fatigue by Jacob’s well, his loving care for those who treated him badly.” (Ibid)
“To religious I offer the cross of solitude, celibacy and unworldliness. It is a cross that has touched the True Cross; it is a cross that was carried by Our Lady, the holiest, most innocent and completely crucified of all who ever loved the cross for Christ.” (Ibid)
“To those serving in government, I present the cross of learning, fairness and the sincerity of truth: a cross worthy of those who, St. Paul says, are in God’s service. Such a cross is ideal for crucifying merely secular values, for repressing self-interest: it encourages peace and quiet in the realm.” (Ibid)
“To workers, I offer the cross of humility and labor, a cross sanctified by our Lord himself in the carpenter’s shop. The cross of daily work is often a sure way to salvation; it may also be the best means of avoiding sin, for the devil finds work for idle hands.” (Ibid)
“For teenagers I have chosen the cross of obedience, purity and self-discipline. It will crucify the young blood of passion that is just coming to a boil: the boldness of youth still awaiting the guiding hand of prudence. It will teach them to bear the easy yoke of Christ in whatever calling in life God may place them.” (Ibid)
“For old people there is the cross of patience, gentleness and a helpful attitude towards the young. This cross demands a brave heart. They have learned that swift as a breath our lives pass away…” (Ibid)
“There is no shortage of crosses for married folk, but perhaps I could single out the cross of mutual support and faithfulness, and the cross of bringing up a family…” (Ibid)
There is but one cross of Jesus Christ. For us, however, our crosses come in many shapes, sizes and situations.
What cross might Christ be asking me to carry today?
*****
“You yourself a sword will pierce…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“Various sacred lovers were present at the death of the Savior. Among them, those having the greatest love had the greatest sorrow, for love was then deeply plunged into sorrow and sorrow into love. All those who were filled with loving passion for their Savior were in love with his passion and sorrow. But his sweet Mother, who loved him more than all others, was more than all others pierced through and through by the sword of sorrow. Her Son’s sorrow at that time was a piercing sword that passed through the Mother’s heart, for that Mother’s heart was fastened, joined and united to her Son in so perfect a union that nothing could wound the one without inflicting the keenest pain upon the other…” (TLG, Book VII, Chapter 13, pp. 50-51)
Nobody should love sorrow. But as we know from our own experience, sorrow is part-and-parcel of loving. If you’ve never experienced sorrow, chances are you’ve probably never experienced love, either.
What more need be said?
*****
“To what shall I compare the people of this generation?”
You’re dammed if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.
That’s essentially what Jesus is saying in today’s selection from the Gospel of Luke. John the Baptist was criticized for eschewing food and drink, whereas Jesus was criticized for enjoying food and drink. Try as you might to do the right thing – try as you might to be true to yourself - some days you just can’t win!
St. Francis de Sales was certainly no stranger to the dynamic of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t, especially when it comes to trying to live a life of devotion. Citing this very selection from today’s Gospel, he observed:
“We can never please the world unless we lose ourselves together with it. It is so demanding that it can’t be satisfied. ‘John came neither eating nor drinking,’ says the Savior, and you say, ‘He has a devil.’ ‘The Son of man came eating and drinking’ and you say that he is ‘a Samaritan’ If we are ready to laugh, play cards or dance with the world in order to please it, it will be scandalized at us, and if we don’t, it will accuse us of hypocrisy or melancholy. If we dress well, it will attribute it to some plan we have, and if neglect our attire, it will accuse us of being cheap and stingy. Good humor will be called frivolity and mortification sullenness. Thus, the world looks at us with an evil eye and we can never please it. It exaggerates our imperfections and claims they are sins, turns our venial sins into mortal sins and changes our sins of weakness into sins of malice.”
“The world always thinks evil and when it can’t condemn our acts it will condemn our intentions. Whether the sheep have horns or not and whether they are white or black, the wolf won’t hesitate to eat them if he can. Whatever we do, the world will wage war on us. If we stay a long time in the confessional, it will wonder how we can have so much to say; if we stay only a short time, it will say we haven’t told everything…The world holds us to be fools; let us hold the world to be mad.” (IDL, Part IV, Chapter 2, pp. 236-237)
These brave martyrs whose lives and sacrifices we remember today made a choice. If they were going to be damned for something, they chose to be damned – in this case, be martyred – for doing the right thing. Of course, as Christians, we believe that their being damned in the eyes of others resulted in their being glorified in the eyes of God.
Damned if you do and damned if you don’t? Well, then, why not be damned for doing what is virtuous, right and good!
*****
“She has shown great love...”
Throughout the history of great ideas, great inventions or great movements, often times what makes an idea, invention or movement great is the fact that nobody else had ever thought of doing it.
Such is the example in today’s Gospel selection from Luke. On the face of it, wiping and anointing the feet of an important guest – signs of great respect and reverence – was something that in Jesus’ day one might simply taken for granted. And in this case, that’s exactly what happened, insofar as it should have been taken for granted, the host and guests alike did just that.
Except for someone described as “a sinful woman”.
She made her way into this august gathering with no invitation (no small achievement in itself) and proceeded to do what nobody else thought to do: through ritual action she expressed her respect and reverence by washing and anointing Jesus’ feet. She might have been a great sinner in the minds of other people, but in the mind of God her sinfulness was only superseded by her great love.
Today, can we relate to what she did?
*****
“Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep…”
“‘First Fruits’ are a religious offering of the first agricultural produce of the harvest. In classical Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Christian religions, the first fruits were given to priests to offer to God. First Fruits were often a primary source of income to maintain the religious leaders as well as their places of worship…” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Fruits)
First fruits – the very first fruits of the harvest – are things that many peoples offer to God before making use of any subsequent harvest for themselves. In today’s first reading from First Corinthians, Paul suggests that in the person of Jesus, “first fruits” have taken on a whole new meaning: Jesus is the “first fruits” of the New Covenant that God offers to us! The “first fruits” of the Resurrection are something that God has set aside for us.
And continues to do so.
In his Introduction to the Devout Life, Francis de Sales wrote:
“When he created things, God commanded plants to bring forth their fruits – each one according to its kind. In like manner God commands Christians, the living plants of the Church, to bring forth the fruits of devotion, each according to one’s position and vocation.” (IDL, Part I, Chapter 3, p. 43)
What better way for us to express our gratitude for the “first fruits” of divine life and love embodied in the person of Jesus than by sharing our fruits of devotion with one another?
First!
*****
“A sower went out to sow…”
Some weeks ago, we considered a variation of the parable of the sower. We suggested that there was something of the fate of each of the seeds contained inside each one of us. How many good beginnings in our lives have been trampled upon and/or consumed by something else? How many of us have hardened our hearts to go good things only to see them perish for lack of care? How many good ideas or intentions have failed to bear fruit because they were chocked off by other concerns? And still, for all our struggles and setbacks, many of the seeds of God’s goodness in us have taken root and produced a great harvest.
Just for today, let’s hear the parable in a different way. Think of all the big plans you have made for others. Think of all the good intentions that you’ve suggested to others. Think of all expectations that you’ve cradled in your heart for others. In other words, think of all the seeds that you’ve planted in the lives of other people. It’s very tempting – and even more discouraging – to focus on how many of those seeds never amounted to much – if anything at all. In the Salesian tradition, it is far better – and healthier to boot – to focus on how the seeds that you may have planted in others have taken root, have grown, and even flourished, sometimes beyond even your wildest dreams.
Can you think of any examples of this growth in your own life? Can you think of examples in the lives of others, especially in those people whom you know and love?
If not, just this day how might God be asking you to sow good seeds in the heart, mind or life of another person?
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