Day 27: Obedient Listening

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Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent

You know me and you know where I came from.
Yet I have not come of my own accord:
but he who sent me is true;
You do not know him,
but I know him
because I have my being from him
and it was he who sent me. John 7:28-29

Fellowship with Jesus Christ is not a commitment to suffer as much as possible, but a commitment to listen with him to God’s love without fear. . . .

We are often tempted to “explain” suffering in terms of “the will of God.” Not only can this evoke anger and frustration, but also it is false. “God’s will” is not a label that can be put on unhappy situations. God wants to bring joy not pain, peace not war, healing not suffering. Therefore, instead of declaring anything and everything to be the will of God, we must be willing to ask ourselves where in the midst of our pains and sufferings we can discern the loving presence of God.

When, however, we discover that our obedient listening leads us to our suffering neighbors, we can go to them in the joyful knowledge that love brings us there. We are poor listeners because we are afraid that there is something other than love in God. This is not so strange since we seldom, if ever, experience love without a taint of jealousy, resentment, revenge, or hatred. Often we see love surrounded by limitations and conditions. We tend to doubt what presents itself to us as love and are always on guard, prepared for disappointments. . . .

For this reason we find it hard simply to listen or to obey. But Jesus truly listened and obeyed because only he knew the love of his Father: “Not that anybody has seen the Father, except the one who comes from God: he has seen the Father” (John 6:46). “You do not know him, but I know him because I have come from him” (John 7:28-29).

He came to include us in his divine obedience. He wanted to lead us to the Father so that we could enjoy the same intimacy he did. When we come to recognize that in and through Jesus we are called to be daughters and sons of God and to listen to him, our loving Father, with total trust and surrender, we will also see that we are invited to be no less compassionate than Jesus himself. When obedience becomes our first and only concern, then we too can move into the world with compassion and feel the suffering of the world so deeply that through our compassion we can give new life to others.

The world in which we live today and about whose suffering we know so much seems more than ever a world from which Christ has withdrawn himself. How can I believe that in this world we are constantly being prepared to receive the Spirit? Still, I think that this is exactly the message of hope. God has not withdrawn himself. He sent his Son to share our human condition and the Son sent us his Spirit to lead us into the intimacy of his divine life. It is in the midst of the chaotic suffering of humanity that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love, makes himself visible. But can we recognize his presence?

Our Prayer

Merciful God,
you know our weakness and distress.
Yet the weaker we are,
the stronger is your help.
Grant that we may accept with joy and gratitude
the gift of this time of grace,
and bear witness to your work in our lives.

Day 26: Glory

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Thursday of the Fourth Week in Lent

How can you believe,
since you look to each other for glory
and are not concerned
with the glory that comes from the one God? John 5:44

I have gradually become aware how central this word “glory” is in John’s Gospel. There is God’s glory, the right glory that leads to life. And there is human glory, the vain glory that leads to death. All through his Gospel John shows how we are tempted to prefer vain glory over the glory that comes from God.

Human glory is always connected with some form of competition. Human glory is the result of being considered better, faster, more beautiful, more powerful, or more successful than others. Glory conferred by people is glory that results from being favorably compared to other people. The better our scores on the scoreboard of life, the more glory we receive. This glory comes with upward mobility. The higher we climb on the ladder of success, the more glory we collect. But this same glory also creates our darkness. Human glory, based on competition, leads to rivalry; rivalry carries within it the beginning of violence; and violence is the way to death. Thus human glory proves to be vain glory, false glory, mortal glory.

How then do we come to see and receive God’s glory? In his Gospel, John shows that God chose to reveal his glory to us in his humiliation. That is the good, but also disturbing, news. God, in his infinite wisdom, chose to reveal his divinity to us not through competition, but through compassion, that is, through suffering with us. God chose the way of downward mobility. Every time Jesus speaks about being glorified and giving glory, he always refers to his humiliation and death. It is through the way of the cross that Jesus gives glory to God, receives glory from God, and makes God’s glory known to us. The glory of the resurrection can never be separated from the glory of the cross. The risen Lord always shows us his wounds.

Thus the glory of God stands in contrast to the glory of people. People seek glory by moving upward. God reveals his glory by moving downward. If we truly want to see the glory of God, we must move downward with Jesus. This is the deepest reason for living in solidarity with poor, oppressed, and handicapped people. They are the ones through whom God’s glory can manifest itself to us. They show us the way to God, the way to salvation.

Our Prayer

How often have I lived through these weeks
without paying much attention
to penance, fasting, and prayer?
How often have I missed
the spiritual fruits of this season
without even being aware of it?
But how can I ever really celebrate Easter
without observing Lent?
How can I rejoice fully in your resurrection
when I have avoided participating in your death?
Yes, Lord, I have to die —
with you, through you, and in you —
and thus become ready to recognize you
when you appear to me in your resurrection.
There is so much in me that needs to die:
false attachments, greed and anger,
impatience and stinginess.
O Lord, I am self-centered,
concerned about myself, my career, my future,
my name and future, my name and fame.
I see clearly now how little I have died with you,
really gone your way and been faithful to it.
O Lord, make this Lenten season
different from the other ones.
Let me find you again.
Amen.

Day 25: Father, Son, Spirit

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Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

In all truth I tell you,
by himself the Son can do nothing;
he can do only what he sees the Father doing:
and whatever the Father does the Son does too. John 5:19

Jesus’ obedience means a total, fearless listening to his loving Father. Between the Father and the Son there is only love. Everything that belongs to the Father, he entrusts to the Son (Luke 10:22), and everything the Son has received, he returns to the Father. The Father opens himself totally to the Son and puts everything in his hands: all knowledge (John 12:50), all glory (John 8:54), all power (John 5:19-21). And the Son opens himself totally to the Father and thus returns everything into his Father’s hands. “I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I leave the world to go to the Father” (John 16:28).

This inexhaustible love between the Father and the Son includes and yet transcends all forms of love known to us. It includes the love of a father and mother, a brother and sister, a husband and wife, a teacher and friend. But it also goes far beyond the many limited and limiting human experiences of love we know. It is a caring yet demanding love. It is a supportive yet severe love. It is a gentle yet strong love. It is a love that gives life yet accepts death. In this divine love Jesus was sent into the world; to this divine love Jesus offered himself on the cross. This all-embracing love, which epitomizes the relationship between the Father and the Son, is a divine Person, coequal with the Father and the Son. It has a personal name. It is called the Holy Spirit. The Father loves the Son and pours himself out in the Son. The Son is loved by the Father and returns all he is to the Father. The Spirit is love itself, eternally embracing the Father and the Son.

This eternal community of love is the center and source of Jesus’ spiritual life, a life of uninterrupted attentiveness to the Father in the Spirit of love. It is from this life that Jesus’ ministry grows. His eating and fasting, his praying and acting, his traveling and resting, his preaching and teaching, his exorcising and healing, were all done in this Spirit of love. We will never understand the full meaning of Jesus’ richly varied ministry unless we see how the many things are rooted in the one thing: listening to the Father in the intimacy of perfect love. When we see this, we will also realize that the goal of Jesus’ ministry is nothing less than to bring us into this most intimate community.

Today in the Gospel reading of the liturgy, Jesus reveals that everything he does is done in relationship with his Father. . . .

Jesus’ words have a special meaning for me. I must live in an ongoing relationship with Jesus and through him with the Father. This relationship is the core of the spiritual life. This relationship prevents my life from being consumed by “keeping up” with things. This relationship prevents my days from becoming boring, fatiguing, draining, depressing, and frustrating. If all that I do can become more and more an expression of my participation in God’s life of total giving and receiving in love, everything else will be blessed and will lose its fragmented quality. This does not mean that everything will become easy and harmonious. There will still be much agony, but when connected with God’s own agony, even my agony can lead to life.

Our Prayer

And so, I pray to You, Yahweh,
     at the time of your favor;
in your faithful love answer me,
     in the constancy of your saving power.
Answer me, Yahweh,
for your faithful love is generous;
in your tenderness turn towards me;
do not turn away from your servant.
     — Ps. 69:13, 16

Day 24: A Clean Heart

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Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

Jesus met him in the Temple and said, “Now you are well again, do not sin any more.” John 5:14

Prayer heals. Not just the answer to prayer. When we give up our competition with God and offer God every part of our heart, holding back nothing at all, we come to know God’s love for us and discover how safe we are in his embrace. Once we know again that God has not rejected us, but keeps us close to his heart, we can find again the joy of living, even though God might guide our life in a different direction from our desires.

I hardly remember what it was, but a small critical remark and a few irritations during my work in the bakery were enough to tumble me head-over-heels into a deep, morose mood. Many hostile feelings were triggered and in a long sequence of morbid associations, I felt worse and worse about myself, my past, my work, and all the people who came to mind. But happily I saw myself tumbling and was amazed how little was needed to lose my peace of mind and to pull my whole world out of perspective. Oh, how vulnerable I am.

The milieu of this place fully of prayerful people prevents me from acting out, from getting angry, from bursting open. I can sit down and see how quickly the little empty place of peace in my heart is filled again with rocks and garbage falling down from all sides.

It is hard to pray in such a mood. But still during Terce, the short prayer immediately after work, standing outside in our dirty work clothes, we read: “Is anyone among you in trouble? He should turn to prayer.” Indeed prayer is the only real way to clean my heart and to create new space. I am discovering how important that inner space is. When it is there it seem that I can receive many concerns of others in it without becoming depressed. When I sense that inner quiet place, I can pray for many others and feel a very intimate relationship with them. There even seems to be room for the thousands of suffering people in prisons and in the deserts of North Africa. Sometimes I feel as if my heart expands from my parents traveling in Indonesia to my friends in Los Angeles and from the Chilean prisons to the parishes in Brooklyn.

Now I know that it is not I who pray but the spirit of God who prays in me. Indeed, when God’s glory dwells in me, there is nothing too far away, nothing too painful, nothing too strange or too familiar that it cannot contain and renew by its touch. Every time I recognize the glory of God in me and give it space to manifest itself to me, all that is human can be brought there and nothing will be the same again. Once in a while I just know it: of course, God hears my prayer. He himself prays in me and touches the whole world with his love right here and now.

Our Prayer

O Lord Jesus Christ,
you who forgave the sins of the paralytic
before you let him walk again,
I pray that this Lenten period
may make me more aware
of your forgiving presence in my life
and less concerned about performing well
in the eyes of my world.
Let me recognize you
at this virginal point in the depth of my heart
where you dwell and heal me.
Let me experience you in that center of my being
from which you want to teach and guide me.
Let me know you as my loving brother
who holds nothing —
not even my worst sins —
against me,
but who wants to touch me in a gentle embrace.
Take away the many fears, suspicions, and doubts
by which I prevent you from being my Lord,
and give me the courage and freedom
to appear naked and vulnerable
in the light of your presence,
confident in your unfathomable mercy.
I know how great my resistance is,
how quickly I choose the darkness
instead of the light.
But I also know that you keep calling
me into the light,
where I can see not only my sins
but your gracious face as well.
Be with me every hour of my days.
Praise and glory to you, now and forever.
Amen.

Day 23: Faith in God’s Love

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Monday of the Fourth Week in Lent

He went again to Cana in Galilee, where he had changed the water into wine. And there was a court official whose son was ill at Capernaum; hearing that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judaea, he went and asked him to come and cure his son, as he was at the point of death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and portents you will not believe!” “Sir,” answered the official, “Come down before my child dies.” “Go home,” said Jesus, “your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus had said and went on him way home. John 4:46-50

The descending way of Jesus, painful as it is, is God’s most radical attempt to convince us that everything we long for is indeed given us. What he asks of us is to have faith in that love. The word “faith” is often understood as accepting something you can’t understand. People often say: “Such and such can’t be explained; you simply have to believe it.” However, when Jesus talks about faith, he means first of all to trust unreservedly that you are loved, so that you can abandon every false way of obtaining love. That’s why Jesus tells Nicodemus that, through faith in the descending love of God, we will be set free from anxiety and violence and will find eternal life.

The mystery of God’s love is not that he takes our pains away, but that he first wants to share them with us. Out of this divine solidarity comes new life. Jesus’ being moved in the center of his being by human pain is indeed a movement toward new life. God is our God, the God of the living. In his divine womb life is always born again. . . . The truly good news is that God is not a distant God, a God to be feared and avoided, a God of revenge, but a God who is moved by our pains and participates in the fullness of the human struggle.

Our Prayer

Integrity and generosity are marks of Yahweh
for he brings sinners back to the path.
Judiciously he guides the humble,
instructing the poor in his way.
Adoration I offer, Yahweh,
to you, my God.
     — Ps. 25:8-10

Week 4: The Seclusion of Our Heart

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Fourth Sunday in Lent

God does not see as human beings see; they look at appearances but Yahweh looks at the heart. 1 Sam. 16:7

Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self that is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. “Compulsive” is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated, or despised. . . . The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same — more work, more money, more friends.

These very compulsions are at the basis of the two main enemies of the spiritual life: anger and greed. They are the inner side of a secular life, the sour fruits of our worldly dependencies.

It is not so strange that Anthony and his fellow monks considered it a spiritual disaster to accept passively the tenets and values of their society. They had come to appreciate how hard it is not only for the individual Christian but also for the church itself to escape the seductive compulsions of the world. What was their response? They escaped from the sinking ship and swam for their lives. And the place of salvation is called desert, the place of solitude. . . .

Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into the furnace. There he was tempted with the three compulsions of the world: to be relevant (“turn stones into loaves”), to be spectacular (“throw yourself down”), and to be powerful (“I will give you all these kingdoms”). There he affirmed God as the only source of his identity (“You must worship the Lord your God and serve him alone”). Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter — the struggle against the compulsions of the false self and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self.

Our heart is the center of our being human. There our deepest thoughts, intuitions, emotions, and decisions find their source. But it’s also there that we are often most alienated from ourselves. We know little or nothing of our own heart. We keep our distance, as though we were afraid of it. What is most intimate is also what frightens us most. Where we are most ourselves, we are often strangers to ourselves. That is the painful part of our being human. We fail to know our hidden centers; and so we live and die often without knowing who we really are. If we ask ourselves why we think, feel, and act in such or such a way, we often have no answer, thus proving to be strangers in our own house. They mystery of the spiritual life is that Jesus desires to meet us in the seclusion of our own heart, to make his love known to us there, to free us from our fears and to make our own deepest self known to us. In the privacy of our heart, therefore, we can learn not only to know Jesus but, through Jesus, ourselves as well.

Our Prayer

Almighty God,
your eternal word is the true light
that enlightens every human being.
Heal the blindness of our hearts,
that we may discern what is right
and love you sincerely.

Day 22: Conversion

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Saturday of the Third Week in Lent

Come, let us return to Yahweh.
He has rent us and he will heal us;
he has struck us and he will bind up our wounds;  Hos. 6:1-2

Living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion my be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness. We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God’s life with us. Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things that we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us. “All these other things,” which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life that we have discovered. This does not mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or take our struggles and pains away. The lives of Jesus’ disciples clearly show that suffering does not diminish because of conversion. Sometimes it even becomes more intense. But our attention is no longer directed to the “more or less.” What matters is to listen attentively to the Spirit and to go obediently where we are being led, whether to a joyful or a painful place.

Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God’s way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father.

Our Prayer

O Lord, this holy season of Lent is passing quickly.
I entered into it with fear,
but also with great expectations.
I hoped for a great breakthrough,
a powerful conversion, a real change of heart;
I wanted Easter to be a day so full of light
that not even a trace of darkness
would be left in my soul.
But I know that you do not come to your people
with thunder and lightning.
Even St. Paul and St. Francis
journeyed through much darkness
before they could see your light.
Let me be thankful for your gentler way.
I know you are at work.
I know you will not leave me alone.
I know you are quickening me for Easter —
but in a way fitting to my own history
and my own temperament.
I pray that these last there weeks,
in which you invite me to enter more fully
into the mystery of your passion,
will bring me a greater desire to follow you
on the way that you create for me
and to accept the cross that you give to me.
Let me die to the desire
to choose my own way and select my own cross.
You do not want to make me a hero
but a servant who loves you.
Be with me tomorrow and in the days to come,
and let me experience your gentle presence.
Amen.

Day 21: An Oratory of the Heart

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Friday of the Third Week in Lent

You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30

To live a spiritual life is to live in the presence of God. This very straightforward truth was brought home to me forcefully by Brother Lawrence, a French Carmelite brother who lived in the seventeenth century. The book The Practice of the Presence of God contains four conversations with Brother Lawrence and fifteen letters by him.

He writes: “It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church. We may make an oratory of our heart wherein to retire from time to time to converse with him in meekness, humility, and love. Everyone is capable of such familiar conversation with God, some more, some less .He knows what we can do. Let us begin, then. Perhaps he expects but one generous resolution on our part. Have courage.”

“I know that for the right practice of it [the presence of God] the heart must be empty of all other things, because God will possess the heart alone; and as he cannot possess it alone without emptying it of all besides, so neither can he act there, and do in it what pleases, unless it be left vacant to him.”

Brother Lawrence’s message, in all its simplicity, is very profound. For him who has become close to God, all is one. Only God counts, and in God all people and all things are embraced with love. To live in the presence of God, however, is to live with purity of heart, with simplemindedness, and with total acceptance of his will. That, indeed, demands a choice, a decision, and great courage. It is a sign of true holiness.

Our Prayer

Dear Lord, you once said,
”The will of him who sent me
is that I should lose nothing
of all that he has given to me.”
These words are a source of consolation this day.
They show that you are doing all that can be done
to keep me in your love.
They demonstrate that indeed
you entered this world to save me,
to free me from the bonds of evil and sin,
and to lead me to your Father’s house.
They reveal that you are willing
to struggle against the strong powers
which pull me away from you.
Lord, you want to keep me, hold on to me,
fight for me, protect me, help me, support me,
comfort me, and present me to your Father.
It indeed is your divine task not to lose me!
And yet I am free.
I can separate myself from you,
and you will never take this freedom away from me.
Oh, what a wonder of love,
what a mystery of divine grace!
Please, Lord, let me freely choose for your love
so that I will not be lost to you.
Amen.

Day 20: Spiritual Discipline

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Thursday of the Third Week in Lent

Anyone who is not with me is against me; and anyone who does not gather in with me throws away. Luke 11:23

The spiritual life is a gift. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who lifts us up into the kingdom of God’s love. But to say that being lifted up into the kingdom of love is a divine gift does not mean that we wait passively until the gift is offered to us. Jesus tells us to set our hearts on the kingdom. Setting our hearts on something involves not only serious aspiration but also strong determination. A spiritual life requires human effort. The forces that keep pulling us back into a worry-filled life are far from easy to overcome.

“How hard it is,” Jesus exclaims, “to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:23). And to convince us of the need for hard work, he says, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matt. 16:24).

Here we touch the question of discipline in the spiritual life. A spiritual life without discipline is impossible. Discipline is the other side of discipleship. The practice of a spiritual discipline makes us more sensitive to the small, gentler voice of God. The prophet Elijah did not encounter God in the mighty wind or in the earthquake or in the fire, but in the small voice (see 1 Kings 19:9-13). Through the practice of a spiritual discipline we become attentive to that small voice and willing to respond when we hear it.

From all that I said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much inner and outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us. Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we find that Latin word surdus, which means “deaf.” A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear. When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening.” A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance. Jesus’ life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was “all ear.” That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.

A spiritual discipline, therefore, is the concentrated effort to create some inner and outer space in our lives, where this obedience can be practiced. Through a spiritual discipline we prevent the world from filling our lives to such an extend that there is no place left to listen. A spiritual discipline sets us free to pray or, to say it better, allows the Spirit of God to pray in us.

Our Prayer

Almighty God,
grant that we may heed the call of your grace
and ready ourselves all the more fervently
to celebrate the mysteries of Easter,
as the feast of our redemption
comes closer and closer.

Day 19: Life-Giving Memory

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Wednesday of the Third Week in Lent

But take care, as you value your lives! Do not forget the things which you yourselves have seen, or let them slip from your heart as long as you live; teach them, rather, to your children and to your children’s children. Deut. 4:9

It is in memory that we enter into a nurturing and sustaining relationship with Christ. In his farewell discourse Jesus said to his disciples, “It is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Advocate will not come to you. . . . But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth” (John 16:7, 13). Here Jesus reveals to his closest friends that only in memory will real intimacy with him be possible, that only in memory will they experience the full meaning of what they have witnessed.

They listened to his words, they saw him on Mount Tabor, they heard him speak about his death and resurrection, but their ears and eyes remained close and they did not understand. The Spirit, his spirit, had not yet come, and although they saw and heart, smelled and touched him, they remained distance. Only later when he was gone could his true Spirit reveal itself to them. In his absence a new and more intimate presence became possible, a presence that nurtured and sustained in the midst of tribulations and that created the desire to see him again. The great mystery of the divine revelation is that God entered into intimacy with us not only by Christ’s coming, but also by his leaving. Indeed, it is in Christ’s absence that our intimacy with him is so profound that we can say he dwells in us, call him our food and drink, and experience him as the center of our being.

That this is far from a theoretical idea becomes clear in the lives of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Alfred Delp, who, while in Nazi prisons waiting for death, experienced Christ’s presence in the midst of his absence. Bonhoeffer writes: “The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34). . . . Before God and with God we live without God.” Thus the memory of Jesus Christ is much more than the bringing to mind of past redemptive events. It is a life-giving memory, a memory that sustains and nurtures us here and now and so gives us a real sense of being rooted amid the many crises of daily life.

In Jesus no division existed between his words and his actions, between what he said and what he did. Jesus’ words were his actions, his words were events. They not only spoke about changes, cures, new life, but they actually created them. In this sense, Jesus is truly the Word made flesh; in that Word all is created and by that Word all is re-created.

Saintliness means living without division between word and action. If I would truly live in my own life the word I am speaking, my spoken words would become actions, and miracles would happen whenever I opened my mouth.

Our Prayer

We give thanks to you, God,
we give thanks to you,
as we call upon your name,
as we recount your wonders.
But I shall speak out for ever,
shall make music for the God of Jacob.
   — Ps, 75:1, 9

Day 18: God-with-Us

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Tuesday of the Third Week in Lent

 Then the master sent for the man and said to him, “You wicked servant, I cancelled all that debt of yours when you appealed to me. Were you not bound, then, to have pity on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you?” And in his anger the master handed him over to the torturers till he should pay all his debt. And that is how my heavenly Father will deal with you unless you each forgive your brother from your heart. Matt. 18:32-35

God’s compassion is not something abstract of indefinite, but a concrete, specific gesture in which God reaches out to us. In Jesus Christ we see the fullness of God’s compassion. To us who cry out from the depth of our brokenness for a hand that will touch us, an arm that can embrace us, lips that will kiss us, a word that speaks to us here and now, and a heart that is not afraid of our fears and tremblings; to us who feel our own pain as no other human being feels it, has felt it, or ever will feel it and who are always waiting for someone who dares to come close — to us a man has come who could truly say, “I am with you.” Jesus Christ, who is God-with-us, has come to us in the freedom of love, not needing to experience our human condition.

In Jesus Christ the obedient servant, who did not cling to his divinity but emptied himself and became as we are, God has revealed the fullness of his compassion. He is Immanuel, God-with-us. The great cal we have heard is to live a compassionate life. . . .

As long as we live on this earth, our lives as Christians must be marked by compassion. But we must realize that the compassionate life is not our final goal. In fact, we can live the compassionate life to the fullest only when we know that it points beyond itself. We know that he who emptied and humbled himself has been raised high and has been given a name above all other names, and we know too that he left us to prepare a place for us where suffering will be overcome and compassion no longer necessary. There is a new heaven and a new earth for which we hope with patient expectation. This is the vision presented in the Book of Revelation:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, and the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, as beautiful as a bride all dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne, “You see this city? Here God lives among men. He will make his home among them; they shall be his people, and he will be their God; his name is God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness. The world of the past has gone.” Rev. 21:1-4

This is the vision that guides us. This vision makes us share one another’s burdens, carry our crosses together, and unite for a better world. This vision takes the despair out of death and the morbidity out of suffering, and opens new horizons. This vision also gives us the energy to manifest its first realization in the midst of the complexities of life. This vision is indeed of a future world. But it is no utopia. The future has already begun and is revealed each time strangers are welcomed, the naked are clothed, the sick and prisoners are visited, and oppression is overcome. Through these grateful actions the first glimpses of a new heaven and a new earth can be seen.

Our Prayer

Dear Lord, help me keep my eyes on you.
You are the incarnation of divine love,
you are the expression
of God’s infinite compassion,
you are the visible manifestation
of the Father’s holiness.
You are beauty, goodness, gentleness,
forgiveness, and mercy.
To you I want to give all that I am.
Let me be generous, not stingy or hesitant.

Day 17: A Hidden God

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Monday of the Third Week in Lent

“In truth I tell you, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” . . .
When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feed and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him off the cliff, but he passed straight through the crowd and walked away. Luke 4:24, 28-30

He became a human being among a small, oppressed people, under very difficult circumstances. He was held in contempt by the rulers of his country and was put to a shameful death between two criminals.

There was nothing spectacular about Jesus’ life. Far from it! Even when you look at Jesus’ miracles, you find that he did not heal or revive people in order to get publicity. He frequently forbade them even to talk about it. His resurrection too was a hidden event. Only his disciples and a few of the women and men who had known him intimately before his death saw him as the risen Lord.

Now that Christianity has become one of the major world religions and millions of people utter the name of Jesus every day, it’s hard for us to believe that Jesus revealed God in hiddenness. But neither Jesus’ life nor his death nor his resurrection were intended to astound us with the great power of God. God became a lowly, hidden, almost invisible God. . . .

That’s a mystery that is difficult to grasp in an age that attaches so much value to publicity. We tend to think that the more people know and talk about something, the more important it must be. That’s understandable, considering the fact that great notoriety often means big money, and big money often means a large degree of power, and power easily creates the illusion of importance. In our society, it’s often statistics that determine what’s important: the best-selling LP, the most popular book, the richest man, the tallest building, the most expensive car.

It strikes me again and again that, in our publicity-seeking world, a lot of discussions about God take it as their starting point that even God has to justify himself. People often say: “If that God of yours really exists, then why doesn’t he make his omnipotence more visible in this chaotic world of ours?” God is called to account, as it were, and mockingly invited to prove, just for once, that he really does exist. Again, you often hear someone say: “I’ve no need whatever for God. I can perfectly well look after myself. As a matter of fact, I’ve yet to receive any help from God with my problems!” The bitterness and sarcasm evident in remarks of this sort show what’s expected: that God should at least be concerned about his own popularity. People often talk as though God has as great a need for recognition as we do.

Now look at Jesus, who came to reveal God to us, and you see that popularity in any form is the very thing he avoids. He is constantly pointing out that God reveals himself in secrecy. It sounds very paradoxical, but accepting and, I would venture to say, entering into that paradox sets you on the road of the spiritual life.

Our Prayer

Lord, I pray for all
who witness for you in this world:
ministers, priests, and bishops,
men and women
who have dedicated their lives to you,
and all those who try to bring
the light of the Gospel
into the darkness of this age.
Give them courage, strength,
perseverance, and hope;
fill their hearts and minds
with the knowledge of your presence,
and let them experience your name
as their refuge from all dangers.
Most of all, give them the joy of your Spirit,
so that wherever they go and whomever they meet
they will remove the veil
of depression, fatalism, and defeatism
and will bring new life to the many
who live in constant fear of death.
Lord, be with all who bring the Good News.
Amen.

Week 3: Eat and Drink

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Third Sunday in Lent

Whoever drinks this water
will be thirsty again;
but no one who drinks the water
that I shall give him
will ever be thirsty again;
the water that I shall give him
will become in him a spring of water,
welling up for eternal life.
     — John 4:14

In the midst of Lent I am made aware that Easter is coming again: the days are becoming longer, the snow is withdrawing, the sun is bringing new warmth, and a bird is singing. Yesterday, during the night prayers, a cat was crying! Indeed, spring announces itself. And tonight, O Lord, I heart you speak tot he Samaritan woman. You said: “Anyone who drinks the water that I shall give will never be thirsty again; the water that I shall give will turn into a spring inside him, welling up to eternal life.” What words! They are worth many hours, days, and weeks of reflection. I will carry them with me in my preparation for Easter. The water that you give turns into a spring. Therefore, I do not have to be stingy with your gift, O Lord. I can freely let the water come from my center and let anyone who desires drink from it. Perhaps I will even see this spring in myself when others come to it to quench their thirst.

In the Eucharist God’s love is most concretely made present. Jesus has not only become human; he has also become bread and wine in order that, through our eating and our drinking, God’s love might become our own. The great mystery of the Eucharist is that God’s love is offered to us not in the abstract, but in a very concrete way; not as a theory, but as food for our daily life. The Eucharist opens the way for us to make God’s love our own. Jesus himself makes that clear to us when he says:

… my flesh is real food
and my blood is real drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
lives in me and I live in that person.
As the living Father sent me
and I draw life from the Father,
so whoever eats me will also draw life from me.

Whenever you receive the body and blood of Jesus in the Eucharist, his love is given to you, the same love that he showed on the cross. It is the love of God for all people of all times and places, all religions and creeds, all races and classes, all tribes and nations, all sinners and saints.

On the cross, Jesus has shown us how far God’s love goes. It’s a love which embraces even those who crucified him. When Jesus is hanging nailed to the cross, totally broken and stripped of everything, he still prays for his executioners: “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus’ love for his enemies knows no bounds. He prays even for those who are putting him to death. It is this, the enemy-loving love of God, that is offered to us in the Eucharist. To forgive our enemies doesn’t lie within our power. That is a divine gift. That’s why it’s so important to make the Eucharist the heart and center of your life. It’s there that you receive the love which empowers you to take the way that Jesus has taken before you: a narrow way, a painful way, but the way that gives you true joy and peace and enables you to make the nonviolent love of God visible to this world.

Our Prayer

As a deer yearns
for running streams,
so I yearn
for you, my God.
In you is the source of life,
by your light we see the light.
   — Ps. 42:1; 36:9

Day 16: Returning

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Saturday of the Second Week in Lent

 I will leave this place and go to my father and say: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men.” So he left the place and went back to his father.

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him. Luke 15:18-20

The parable of the prodigal son is a story about returning. I realize the importance of returning over and over again. My life drifts away from God. I have to return. . . .  Returning is a lifelong struggle.

It strikes me that the wayward son had rather selfish motivations. He said to himself, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father.” He didn’t return because of a renewed love for his father. No, he returned simply to survive. He had discovered that the way he had chosen was leading him to death. Returning to his father was a necessity for staying alive. He realized that he had sinned, but this realization came about because sin had brought him close to death.

I am moved by the fact that the father didn’t require any higher motivation. His love was so total and unconditional that he simply welcomed his son home.

This is a very encouraging thought. God does not require a pure heart before embracing us. Even if we return only because following our desires has failed to bring happiness, God will take us back. Even if we return because being a Christian brings us more peace than being a pagan, God will receive us. Even if return because our sins did not offer as much satisfaction as we had hoped, God will take us back. Even if we return because we could not make it on our own, God will receive us. God’s love does not require any explanations about why we are returning. God is glad to see us home and wants to give us all we desire, just for being home.

In my mind’s eye I see Rembrandt’s painting The Return of the Prodigal Son. The dim-eyed old father holds his returned son close to his chest with an unconditional love. . . . He seems to think only one thing: “He is back home, and I am glad to have him with me again.”

The voice of despair says, “I sin over and over again. After endless promises to myself and others to do better next time, I find myself back again in the old dark places. Forget about trying to change. I have tried for years. It didn’t work and it will never work. It is better that I get out of people’s way, be forgotten, no longer around, dead.”

This strangely attractive voice takes all uncertainties away and puts an end to the struggle. It speaks unambiguously for the darkness and offers a clear-cut negative identity.

But Jesus came to open my ears to another voice that says, “I am your God, I have molded you with my own hands, and I love what I have made. I love you with a love that has no limits. Do not run away from me. Come back to me — not once, not twice, but always again. You are my child. How can you ever doubt that I will embrace you again, hold you against my breast, kiss you and let my hands run through your hair? I am your God — the God of mercy and compassion, the God of pardon and love, the God of tenderness and care. Please do not say that I have given up on you, that I cannot stand you any more, that there is no way back. It is not true. I so much want you to be with me. I so much want you to be close to me. I know all your thoughts. I hear all your words. I see all of your actions. And I love you because you are beautiful, made in my own image, an expression of my most intimate love. Do not judge yourself. Do not condemn yourself. Do not reject yourself. Let my love touch the deepest, most hidden corners of your heart and reveal to you your own beauty, a beauty that you have lost sight of, but that will become visible to you again in the light of my mercy. Come, come, let me wipe your tears, and let my mouth come close to your ear and say to you, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’”

This is the voice that Jesus wants us to hear. It is the voice that calls us always to return to the one who has created us in love and wants to re-create us in mercy.

 Our Prayer

O Lord, my Lord,
help me to listen to your voice
and to decide for your mercy.

Day 15: A New Creation

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Friday of the Second Week in Lent

 I tell you, then, that the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Matt. 21:43

Even though it may be realistic to admit that there is hardly any news in the Sermon on the Mount for most people, the core message of the Gospel nonetheless contains a truth that no one has yet fully made true. And real listening means nothing less than the constant willingness to confess that we have not yet realized what we profess to believe. Who likes to hear, for example, that the last will be first, if we happen to be first? And who wants to hear that those who are poor, who mourn, who are hungry, thirsty, and persecuted are called happy, when we are wealthy, self-content, well-fed, praised for our good wines, and admired by all our friends? Who wants to hear that we have to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us when we call our boss an S.O.B., our own son a good-for-nothing tramp. . . .

The message might be the same all through life and might be repeated over and over again in different words and styles, but those of us who let it really come through allow ourselves, at the same time, the possibility of coming to an insight that might well have consequences for our style of life, which we are not eager to accept. The truth, after all, is radical: it goes to the roots of a person’s life in such a way that few are those who want it and the freedom it brings with it. There is, in fact, such an outfight fear to face the truth in all its directness and simplicity that irritation and anger seem to be a more common human response than a humble confession that we also belong to the group Jesus criticized.

For Christians are Christian only when we unceasingly ask critical questions of the society in which we live and continuously stress the necessity for conversion, not only for the individual but also of the world. Christians are Christians only when we refuse to allow ourselves or anyone else to settle into a comfortable rest. We remain dissatisfied with the status quo. And we believe that we have an essential role to play in the realization of the new world to come — even if we cannot say how that world will come about. Christians are Christians only when we keep saying to everyone we meet that the good news of the Kingdom has to be proclaimed to the whole world and witnessed to all nations (Matt. 24:13). As long as Christians live we keep searching for a new order without divisions between people, for a new structure that allows every person to shake hands with every other person and a new life in which there will be lasting unity and peace. We will not allow our neighbors to stop moving, to lose courage, or to escape into small everyday pleasures to which they can cling. We are irritated by satisfaction and self-content in ourselves as well as in others since we know, with an unshakable certainty, that something great is coming of which we have already see the first rays of light. We believe that this world not only passes but has to pass in order to let the new world be born. We believe that there will never be a moment in our lives in which we can rest in the supposition that there is nothing left to do. But we will not despair when we do not see the result we wanted to see. For in the midst of all our work we keep hearing the words of the One sitting on the throne: “I am making the whole of creation new” (Rev. 21:5).

 Our Prayer

God, you wish to reveal to us
how rich is the glory of your mystery
among the gentiles;
it is Christ among us, our hope of glory!
This is the Christ
we are proclaiming, admonishing, and instructing
everyone in all wisdom,
to make everyone perfect in Christ.
     — After Col. 1:7-28

Day 14: Measuring Our Worth

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Thursday of the Second Week in Lent

 I, Yahweh, search the heart,
test the motives,
to give each person what his conduct
and his actions deserve.
     — Jer. 17:10

It is not difficult to see that, in our particular world, we all have a strong desire to accomplish something. Some of us think in terms of great dramatic changes in the structure of our society. Others want at least to build a house, write a book, invent a machine, or win a trophy. And some of us seem to be content when we just do something worthwhile for someone. But practically all of us think about ourselves in terms of our contribution to life. And when we have become old, much of our feelings of happiness or sadness depends on our evaluation of the part we played in giving shape to our world and its history. . . .

When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes.

To live a Christian life means to live in the world without being of it. It is in solitude that this inner freedom can grow. . . .

A life without a lonely place, that is, a life without a quiet center, easily becomes destructive. When we cling to the results of our actions as our own way of self-identification, then we become possessive and defensive and tend to look at our fellow human beings more as enemies to be kept at a distance than as friends with whom we share the gifts of life.

In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of him who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts. In solitude we discover that our life is not a possession to be defended, but a gift to be shared. It’s there we recognize that the healing words we speak are not just our own, but are given to us; that the love we can express is part of a greater love; and that the new life we bring forth is not a property to cling to, but a gift to be received.

In solitude we become aware that our worth is not the same as our usefulness.

 Our Prayer

Yahweh, you examine me and know me,
you know when I sit, when I rise,
you understand my thoughts from afar.
You watch when I walk or lie down,
you know every detail of my conduct.
God, examine me and know my heart,
test me and know my concerns.
Make sure that I am not on my way to ruin,
and guide me on the road of eternity.
     — Ps. 139:1-3, 23-24

Day 13: A Servant God

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Wednesday of the Second Week in Lent

 Anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Matt. 20:26-28

The great mystery of God’s compassion is that in his compassion, in his entering with us into the condition of a slave, he reveals himself to us as God. His becoming a servant is not an exception to his being God. His self-emptying and humiliation are not a step away from his true nature. His becoming as we are and dying on a cross is not a temporary interruption of his of divine existence. Rather, in the emptied and humbled Christ we encounter God, we see who God really is, we come to know his true divinity.

In his servanthood God does not disfigure himself, he does not take on something alien to himself, he does not act against or in spite of his divine self. On the contrary, it is in his servanthood that God chooses to reveal himself as God to us. Therefore, we can say that the downward pull as we see this in Jesus Christ is not a movement away from God, but a movement toward him as he really is: a God for us who came not to rule but to serve. This implies very specifically that God does not want to be known except through servanthood and that, therefore, servanthood is God’s self-revelation.

Radical servanthood does not make sense unless we introduce a new level of understanding and see it as the way to encounter God himself. To be humble and persecuted cannot be desired unless we can find God in humility and persecution. When we begin to see God himself, the source of all our comfort and consolation, in the center of servanthood, compassion becomes much more than doing good for unfortunate people. Radical servanthood, as the encounter with the compassionate God, takes us beyond the distinctions between wealth and poverty, success and failure, fortune and bad luck. Radical servanthood is not an enterprise in which we try to surround ourselves with as much misery as possible, but a joyful way of life in which our eyes are opened to the vision of the true God who chose the way of servanthood to make himself known. The poor are called blessed not because poverty is good, but because theirs is the kingdom of heaven; the mourners are called blessed not because mourning is good, but because they shall be comforted.

Here we are touching the profound spiritual truth that service is an expression of the search for God and not just of the desire to bring about individual or social change.

Joy and gratitude are the qualities of the heart by which we recognize those who are committed to a life of service in the path of Jesus Christ. . . . Wherever we see real service we also see joy, because in the midst of service a divine presence becomes visible and a gift is offered. Therefore, those who serve as followers of Jesus discover that they are receiving more than they are giving. Just as a mother does not need to be rewarded for the attention she pays to her child because her child is her joy, so those who serve their neighbor will find their reward in the people whom they serve. The joy of those who follow their Lord on his self-emptying and humbling way shows that what they seek is not misery and pain but the God whose compassion they have felt in their own lives: their eyes do not focus on poverty and misery, but on the face of the loving.

Our Prayer

Lord,
you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
No one comes to the Father
except through you.
   — After John 14:6