*****
"If one of you decides to build a tower, will you not first sit down and calculate the outlay to see if you can accomplish the project?"
Life can be frustrating enough at times without making it worse by failing to look ahead. How many times have we had to go back to the grocery store because we didn't first make a list of what we needed to buy? How often have we run to Lowe’s or Home Depot three, four, five times, or more on the same day because we simply didn't take the time to first consider all the materials that we would need in order to accomplish a project? How many vacations or trips have been soured because we failed first to sit down and consider all the things we should bring?
Anything worth doing - no matter how simple or complex - is worth doing well. And the first step in doing something well is to plan ahead.
We clearly hear echoes of this truth in the parable from Luke's Gospel. Jesus admonishes his audience to determine first what it is they will need to complete an important task before embarking on the task itself. For his part, Saint Francis de Sales recommends:
"Be careful and attentive to all the matters that God has committed to your care. Since God has confided them to you, God wishes you to have great care for them."
Of course, we know that the Salesian tradition cautions us not to become so obsessed with advanced planning that we become anxious or compulsive. However, this same tradition cautions us against performing tasks or projects in a careless or haphazard manner. Our own experience clearly demonstrates the maxim, “Those who fail to plan are planning to fail.”
Take a page from the life of Jesus himself. Before undertaking his public ministry, he went into the desert where he no doubt took stock of all that he would need to accomplish God's great project for him - the salvation of the human family. Jesus didn't begin his ministry in a haphazard fashion, and he didn't make it up as he went along. He was deliberate and prudent. Before he began his ministry in earnest, he first considered all that he would need - with the Father's love - to redeem all creation through his life, love, passion, death, and resurrection.
God has entrusted to us the most important of all projects - to continue Christ's work on earth and to be sources of God's peace, justice, reconciliation, truth, hope, care, concern, and love for one another. Like the tower in today's Gospel parable, accomplishing this task can sometimes be a tall order indeed. Few of us, however, have the luxury of setting aside forty days in the desert to determine what we need in order to follow God's will - to be the kind of people that God calls us to be. So, are we supposed to calculate what we'll need to be successful - to be faithful - in pursuing this greatest of all projects?
How about starting with the first few minutes of every new day?
*****
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?”
Labor Day offers us a great opportunity to reflect upon the great work to which each of us is called – to continue the creating, healing, and inspiring action of Jesus Christ in the lives of others in ways that fit the state and stage of life in which we find ourselves. Eucharistic Prayer IV in the former Sacramentary (supplanted by the Roman Missal) put it this way:
“Father, we acknowledge your greatness: all your actions show your wisdom and love. You formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures…To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy…And that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him, he sent the Holy Spirit from you, Father, as His first gift to those who believe, to complete his work on earth…”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus finds himself defending his decision to cure someone on the Sabbath, an act forbade insofar as it was perceived as performing “work” on the day of “rest.” Of course, as we see so clearly in the life of Jesus, each and every day provides us with opportunities to work for good in all kinds of ways in the lives of others.
On this Labor Day, how might we do something to help complete Christ’s work on earth in our relationships with one another? What good work(s) can we accomplish in the name of Jesus, the Master of the Sabbath Day…and every day?
*****
“Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers?”
“Litigation (that is, the conduct of a lawsuit) is as old as civilized history. Evidence of trials exists in the hieroglyphic stone tablets of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the scrolls of Rome and Greece, and even the ideographs of the Chinese dynasties. The ancient Romans allowed the law to be practiced directly by the “citizen,” without the necessity of a representative—a crude practice that was abolished, coincidentally, shortly before the fall of the empire. Likewise, the third-century Chinese scholar Shao Chin Tse-Tse wrote in his seminal history of the Tang Dynasty, Ten Percent Fruit Juice, “The way of Confucius required that all disputes be brought before the Emperor by representatives of noble lineage...” (http://www.publishlawyer.com/history.htm)
And what exactly is a lawsuit?
“A lawsuit (or much less commonly a “suit in law”) is a civil action brought in a court of law in which a plaintiff - a party who claims to have incurred loss as a result of a defendant's actions - demands a legal or equitable remedy. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment will be given in the plaintiff's favor, and a variety of court orders may be issued to enforce a right, award damages, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes. Although not as common, a lawsuit may also refer to a criminal action, criminal proceeding, or criminal claim.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuit)
We’ve all suffered injustice at the hands of another person. We’ve all been the victim of someone else’s deceit or deception. We’ve all been cheated, betrayed, or defrauded by someone else. We need to address these wrongs, and in extreme cases, we may even need to seek remedies through litigation. But setting aside the extremes cases, might it not be far better on any given day to try to resolve our claims in the court of common sense before resorting to the court of law?
Before choosing litigation, how about first trying reconciliation?
*****
“The world in its present form is passing away...”
The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, is famous for this dictum: “The only constant is change.” In a letter to Madame de Chantal, Francis de Sales penned a similar sentiment when he wrote:
“I see that all of the seasons of the year converge in your soul: at times you experience all the dryness, distraction, disgust, and boredom of winter; at other times, all the dew and fragrance of the little flowers in May time; and again, the warmth of a desire to please God. All that remains is autumn, and you say that you do not see much of its fruit. Yet it often happens that in threshing the wheat and pressing the grapes we discover more than the harvest or vintage promised. You would like it to be always spring or summer; but no, dear daughter, we have to experience interior as well as exterior changes. Only in heaven will everything be springtime as to beauty, autumn as to enjoyment, and summer as to love. There will be no winter there, but here below we need winter so that we may practice self-denial and the countless small but beautiful virtues that can be practiced during a barren season. Let us go on our little way; so long as we mean well and hold on to our resolve, we can only be on the right track…” (LSD, p. 148)
Whether we realize it or not, the world in its present form is always passing away, because no two days, hours, or moments are precisely the same. For that matter, neither are we and/or other people with whom we are engaged in a variety of relationships on any given day. While change is not always easy for us, change is at the core of what it means to be human and change appears to be quite good for us.
Perhaps change is the only constant, after all, but with one notable exception.
The love that God has for us - that never changes!
*****
“We know that all things work for good for those who love God…”
When Joachim and Ann welcomed their daughter Mary into the world, who could have known – or imagined – that she was destined to become the mother of the Messiah? Who could have thought that this simple, poor, and unassuming maiden would be the vehicle through whom God would fulfill his promise of salvation? Who could have anticipated that her simple “yes” as the handmaid of the Lord would change the course of the world forever?
How about you? Who could have thought that God would bring you out of nothingness in order that you might experience the beauty of being someone? Who would have imagined that God would use your ordinary, everyday life to continue his ongoing creative, redemptive and inspiring action? Who could have known that your attempts to say “yes” to God’s will on a daily basis – however imperfectly – could change other peoples’ lives for the better?
God did it! God continues to do it! And God will continue to do it!
Forever!
*****
“What then is my recompense? That, when I preach, I offer the Gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the Gospel.”
“A contemporary of St. Francis de Sales, St. Peter Claver was born at Verdu, Catalonia, Spain, in 1580, of impoverished parents descended from ancient and distinguished families. He studied at the Jesuit college of Barcelona, entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona in 1602, and took his final vows on August 8th, 1604. While studying philosophy at Majorca, the young religious was influenced by St. Alphonsus Rodriguez to go to the Indies and save ‘millions of perishing souls.’”
“In 1610, he landed at Cartagena (modern Colombia), the principal slave market of the New World, where a thousand slaves were landed every month. After his ordination in 1616, he dedicated himself by special vow to the service of the Negro slaves - a work that was to last for thirty-three years. He labored unceasingly for the salvation of the African slaves and the abolition of the Negro slave trade, and the love he lavished on them was something that transcended the natural order.”
“Boarding the slave ships as they entered the harbor, he would hurry to the revolting inferno of the hold and offer whatever poor refreshments he could afford; he would care for the sick and dying and instruct the slaves through Negro catechists before administering the Sacraments. Through his efforts, three hundred thousand souls entered the Church. Furthermore, he did not lose sight of his converts when they left the ships but followed them to the plantations to which they were sent, encouraged them to live as Christians, and prevailed on their masters to treat them humanely. He died in 1654.” (http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=94)
In addition to preaching the Gospel “free of charge,” Peter Claver was willing to spend himself in the service of others, especially those enslaved.
Today, how can we model his example of dedicated service to those with whom we live and work close to home?
Today, how can we be sources of liberation in the lives of others?
*****
“We, though many, are one body…”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Saint Francis de Sales wrote:
“The supreme unity of the divine act is opposed to confusion and disorder but not to distinction and variety. On the contrary, it employs these last to bring forth beauty by reducing all difference and diversity to proportion, proportion to order, and order to the unity of the world, which comprises all things, both visible and invisible. All these together are called the universe perhaps because all their diversity is reduced to unity as if one were to say ‘unidiverse,’ that is, unique and diverse, unique along with diversity and diverse along with unity. In sum, God’s supreme unity diversifies all things, and his permanent eternity gives change to all things…” (TLG, Book II, Chapter 2, p. 106)
Everything – be it our physical bodies, our families, or our churches – is made of a variety of things. Everybody – be it our physical bodies, our families, or our churches – works best when each and every part does what it is designed and destined to do.
Each and every one of us make up some part of the Body of Christ. The fact that no two of us are exactly the same actually makes possible the unity toward which Jesus challenges us to work. In this fact, we experience a great paradox, perhaps the greatest of all. It is only when each of us is fully and authentically our unique selves that unity with others is truly possible. Put another way, unity is not the same as uniformity, i.e., being exactly the same. Where everything or everybody is the same, there can never be true unity.
Just this day, do you want to do your part to contribute something to the unity of anybody – be it family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, or churchgoers – of which you are a part? Then simply try your level best to be your unique self.
And allow – even encourage – others to do the same!
