Reflections from Friday's Readings

One of the fundamental keys for self-help groups and 12 step programs is the recognition that the person needing help "hits bottom" and comes to a profound sense of their own powerlessness to change things. Though we think of this as a contemporary bit of wisdom it is quite ancient and something Paul has been writing about in his Letter to the Romans for the last two weeks. From the portrait we find in Paul we are apt to recognize clearly that the dynamics of sin and of addiction are almost identical, especially as he describes things today: [["For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand. For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self, but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members."!]]

The "law of (the) mind" is the law (the inner drive and foundational dynamism) of the inner self, the good will and seat of the desire to do good, to know, embrace, and be truth. It is the fundamental law of the self, the God-given source of vocation and all creativity. It is the law which is at war with the law of sin. The whole self under the power of sin (the flesh) is at war with the whole self under the power of the Spirit (the spirit). What Paul knows with absolute certainty is that the attempt to keep the Law on his own power (flesh) only leads more deeply into sin. After all, to attempt to take what can only be received as gift is to betray both the giver and ourselves who are meant to be receivers. It is to increase the distance between ourselves and God.  Our inner self desires to do good and avoid evil but has no power of itself. Paul knew human beings to be locked in a situation of sin, a bondage of the will, and heart. In such a situation of bondage God's greatest gifts, the Law and the call to pray (to worship God in truth and purity of heart) become traps to idolatry and they occasion an even more extreme situation of estrangement and alienation (sin).

It is, as I described earlier in the week, a bit like jumping off a cliff in an attempt to fly and then trying to arrest the inevitable fall (much less believing we can somehow then launch ourselves into flight!) by pulling on the tops of our shoes! Thus, Paul follows his depressing and realistic analysis with a cry of abject helplessness: [[Who will save me from this body of death?]] But Paul's "hitting bottom" was also the moment of his being "exalted" to his original dignity and freedom. Judgment came in his meeting with God in Christ, but so did redemption and so, Paul's cry of abjection is followed by one of exultation, [[Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!]] The realization that he could do nothing to save himself and was thus in bondage to sin was turned on its head as he came to realize he need do nothing but embrace his powerlessness; in that moment he became open (obedient) and Absolute Power (in the weakness of the Crucified Christ) embraced him. Love-in-Act grasped, shook him, and freed him of "the law of sin" so that he might live instead from the grace of God.

Incapacity to Keep the Law or to be People of Prayer apart from God:

One of the striking pieces of Paul's insight here, an insight rooted in his experience of powerlessness is the way two things become complicit in our sin. The first is Law and the second is prayer. I have written recently about Paul's position on the Law. With Prayer what we need to see is that to truly pray we must admit our powerlessness so that God might then work within us. Paul said it this way, "The Spirit helps us in our infirmities. We do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit, with groanings too deep for words intercedes for us." My sense is the Church works very hard to make sure we model this in all of our prayer, all of our liturgy. Just as in addiction, so too in any spiritual life: everything hinges on our deep and dual confession of powerlessness and trust in God.

We begin every prayer with the sign of the cross and the words, "In the Name (that is, in the the dynamic, powerful, and empowering presence), of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." In other words, we open ourselves to being moved and empowered by God's own presence. We complete our prayers in the same way, but this time, like Paul's dual confession in Friday's first reading, it is an expression of gratitude and hope rooted again in the powerful presence of the Triune God within and around us. In monastic life and the Liturgy of the Hours we begin the very first prayer of the day with the hopeful plea, "Lord Open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise." Again, we know we are powerless to say a single word in prayer much less praise God with our lives unless God empowers us in this way. We trust that God will do so but we are equally clear that he must. At every subsequent hour we begin by intoning, O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me!" This is a prayer I personally pray many times a day in all kinds of situations. At these moments I am reminded of my own powerlessness, but also the power I have in Christ, and the covenant relation with God I truly am.

Paying Attention to the Weather?

Luke's Gospel reminds us how urgent this all is, and how attentive we must be at all times to the smallest sign of God's presence and our own powerlessness apart from that presence. Jesus begins by noting how clearly the people see and understand the signs of coming rain or hot winds. There is nothing trivial in this knowledge. In the Middle East of Jesus' day drought or famine led to social unrest and dislocation, loss of unity and death. Just recently we read that the war in Syria was caused in part by a terrible drought followed by the movement of 1.5M people to urban areas. The economy was destabilized, social unrest occurred and then war. Analysts note that because no one really paid attention to the drought as a factor in the county's situation they deemed Syria to be stable even the day before war broke out; this critical inattentiveness to what should have never been overlooked contributed to or (some opine) even caused the catastrophe in which many nations are now embroiled in one way and another. In California, where we are experiencing a serious drought people have begun to pay keen attention to clouds, water tables, fire conditions, El Nino, Hurricane Patricia, and so forth. We know how fragile the situation in which we find ourselves and we watch carefully lest we face disaster down the line. And yet, how many of us look so assiduously for the signs of God's presence --- or at the signs of our own critical need for God's presence?

As in these situations, and exactly like someone in a twelve step program who begins (and continues every step of) their journey into a hope-filled future by admitting the situation from which they cannot extricate themselves as they also open themselves to a "higher power," we are called to make our own Paul's dual confession of bondage to sin and the grateful celebration of freedom (being empowered by grace) in Christ.  At every moment and mood, with every prayer or attempt to be our true selves we are called to remember and claim our powerlessness so that God may simultaneously empower, free, and exalt  us to true dignity and humility. Embracing our personal poverty is the occasion for the triumph of God's great love. As Paul also reminds us, "(God's) grace is sufficient for (us). (God's) power is made perfect in weakness" --- both that of Christ and our own! We know how to do this:  + In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we make our prayers and live our lives. + In the Name of God our lives are made God's own prayers. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Who Will Save me from this Body of Death? (Reprise)

I received a question yesterday regarding someone (a Catholic) who felt he was such a terrible sinner that he could not be forgiven by God. He felt abandoned by God. . .. The person who sent me this email had suggested the person offer up his sufferings and this person replied that they were the result of his sin; he could not offer them to God. He is entirely correct in this --- at least if this offering was meant to make the situation better in some propitiatory way. Such an offering could only make things worse. The ONLY solution to such a situation, and indeed to any of our situations of sinfulness is the mercy of God freely given and humbly received as wholly undeserved. I had already been writing a reflection on the first reading from Friday (Paul's letter to the Romans) so I decided to combine the two here.  Bearing in mind Paul's anguished and jubilant cry from [this Friday's readings]: "Who can save me from this body of death? Praise be to Jesus Christ!" my own response was as follows:

 If there is anything the Scriptures tell us again and again it is that God does not abandon ANYONE. (Even his abandonment of Christ was unique and more complex than simple much less absolute abandonment. Still, it was an expression of the abandonment we each deserve but which God in Christ also redeems.) In Christ, and especially in Christ's passion, God embraced the complete scope of sin and death so that we might be redeemed from these; in Christ he journeyed to the depths of hell to rescue those who were there. Israel failed again and again, committed idolatry, apostasy, etc etc, and NEVER did God abandon her.

It is prideful [or arrogant] to believe the sins we commit are too big for God to forgive or the state of sin from which these come is too great for God to reconcile and heal. The only thing more dangerous is to refuse that forgiveness when it is offered; THAT is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin against the power of the Spirit working in us that says, "Let me forgive you and change your life." Your correspondent has not committed that sin, nor does he need to. The Holy Spirit will continue to prompt him to repent and to allow God to heal him. Even at the moment of death he will be asked to make a decision for or against God. In part this is what death is, the moment when we make a final choice which ratifies or denies the choices of our life.

This person need not offer his sufferings but he does need to trust in Christ's, especially in his obedience [responsiveness] in his suffering and the sufficiency of these things together. There, Paul tells us, is nothing he can do on his own but get farther and farther from God. That [is] the point of [this] Friday's first reading from Romans. If you recall Paul calls out, "Who will save me from this body of death (meaning this whole self under the sway of sin). Law can't do it, good works cannot do it, offering up our own puny sufferings cannot do it (even those which are not the fruit of our own sin!). Only God in Christ can do it. While you say you pray that God might act on this person's behalf, there is no might about Jesus or God doing so or acting to free him from his sin. God has already done so in Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. The Church mediates that to us in innumerable ways. But this person must allow that to be true in his own life. Again, as the reading from Friday [. . .] makes clear, there is simply NOTHING we can do on our own. We are enslaved by sin Unless and Until we allow grace to work in us. Grace is unmerited always and everywhere. God offers us the grace of the victory already achieved by Christ time after time every day of our lives. We have to admit, with Paul, that the only answer to our enslavement is to accept that forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, etc on God's own terms, that is, without ANY sense that we have merited or earned it.

 The temptation to do something religious (including offering up our sufferings) to earn God's forgiveness is the most pernicious and dangerous temptation people face. I would argue it is far more dangerous than the temptation to sexual sins people ordinarily place at the top of lists, etc precisely because we mistakenly believe it (doing something religious) is unequivocally good at all times. Paul knew this well. He knew that the Law acted as temptation in peoples' lives and so, as I noted last week, he came to see it as a school master --- not to teach us what was good, but to instruct us about our weakness and incapacity to do anything salvific -- or even anything good --- on our own. In fact, Paul actually says that God gave us the Law for this very purpose and even so that our own state of sin might be intensified in such a way as to make us ready to cry out for a redeemer. That redeemer has been given to us. His death, resurrection and ascension have accomplished that redemption. We simply have to receive him and the new life he offers us as Paul himself did --- with cries of both abject helplessness and gratitude. 

Paul teaches emphatically: [[You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.]] While we were entirely powerless, while we were godless sinners estranged from God, from our deepest selves, and from the whole of creation, while, that is, we were wholly incapable of acting in a way which would resolve the situation but instead made things ever worse, God acted out of an unfathomable love to reconcile us to our truest selves, to Godself, others and to creation.  This is the GOOD NEWS from which we live and which we proclaim --- nothing other and nothing less.

I hope this is helpful.

A note on translations. Some versions of [this] Friday's first lection read "Who will save me from this mortal body?" I prefer, "Who will save me from this body of death?" because it more clearly connotes a self enslaved by the powers of sin and death. "Mortal body" is too easy to hear as simply referring to a material body which is finite and will die. Body of death refers more powerfully to a self in whom death is actively at work, not only in ourselves but in the world around us, a body (self) which makes death present as a sort of awful and active "contagion". In Paul's theology human beings find themselves to be either a whole self under the sway (enslavement) of sin (for which Paul uses the terms, "flesh body", "flesh" or "body of death") or under the sway (enslavement) of grace (for which he uses the term "Spiritual body", etc.).

Faith built on Grace versus a Religion of Hypocrisy and Fear

Today's readings are from Romans and the Gospel of Luke (Rom. 4:1-8 and Luke 12:1-7). In the first lection Paul refers to Abraham and David, two pillars of the Jewish faith and notes that both of them call for a faith which rests on the faithfulness and love of God, not on good works. Both of them affirm that covenant existence (righteousness) is rooted in the free grace of God --- even without works! It is a startling conclusion for this scholar of the Law-turned-Apostle of the Gospel, but Paul cites both the example of Abraham who "believed God" and only boasted in God's faithfulness, as well as the writings of the psalmist where he says, [[Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not record.]] We can never overstate the earth shattering reversal this priority of Grace over works and God's faithfulness over our own achievements (and failures) represented in Paul's day and yet represents today.

Especially Paul saw that obedience to the Law produces a terrible trap when this is the ground of one's religion and has priority over faith in grace. One commentator (Buetow) on the readings from this week characterized it as producing an experience which is something like a dog chasing its own tail. We try to keep the law only to find that we cannot do so, and we turn to the law to empower us to be truly human and keep the law thus falling even further into sin, and so it goes, on and on, around and around in an inescapable circular trap.

Our attempts to escape condemnation (i.e., to escape the consequences of our actions) lead to greater estrangement from God, to greater enmeshment in sin, to greater reliance on law, and so on. I like Harold Buetow's metaphor but in some ways I prefer another image. Once we have put our faith (trust) in the law and thus too, in our own ability to keep the law it will be rather like finding we have jumped from a cliff expecting we will be able to fly or change the course of things by our own efforts. You can imagine how much good it will do to tug hard at the tops of one's shoes in an attempt to slow down or stop one's fall --- much less launch ourselves upwards in the freedom of flight! We simply do not have the power to do that (heck, some of us can't even reach the tops of our shoes!), and if we try, if we put our trust in our own abilities and achievements, we will add presumption, fatal foolishness, and despair to our undoubted and ever-accelerating helplessness. We may even lead others to fall along with us!

In today's Gospel Luke paints a picture of the trap the Pharisees have fallen into in this way; he is also concerned with the consequences for themselves and others of the rapidly accelerating freefall they are still (ignorantly) in the midst of. In particular Luke is writing about two related forms of religion which are rooted in trust in works of the law rather than in faith in God's unmerited grace. The first form, represented mainly by the Pharisees, is a religion built on hypocrisy; the second and interrelated form, represented mainly by those ordinary Jews who cannot ordinarily keep the Law at all, is a religion which is built on fear.

The extended warning about secrets being revealed and all things being brought into the light of day or shouted from the housetops serves two purposes: the first is to remind the disciples and the Pharisees that all of the latter's plotting and planning, the secret judgments and betrayals will one day be fully revealed, first in the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus, and later in the destruction of the Temple when their hypocritical and essentially empty personal religion will be fully manifested and come to judgment in such consequences. The second purpose is to remind the ordinary folks, Jew and Gentile alike, that their own small (or large) betrayals, infidelities, secret judgments, plottings, etc will be known by God, but even more, that they will have consequences which make them manifest to the world around them. At first this would increase everyone's fear of judgment --- just as the Law increases one's sense of and actual sin --- and it would temporarily sharpen the desperation that has the crowds trampling one another underfoot in their attempts to approach the One who incarnates the very mercy of God. (The trampling others underfoot is itself a great symbol of graceless religion and the trap it creates!)

But the solution to the trap, the ultimate resolution of any religion of either fear or hypocrisy, as Paul says clearly in the first reading, lies in the faithfulness of God and our own trust in the God revealed in Jesus --- just as the crowds in Luke's gospel lection have come on some level to know. At some point we have to stop chasing our own tails; we must stop grasping at our own "boot straps" and believe instead in God who holds us securely in the palm of his hand --- who, in fact holds the entirety of creation in the palm of his hand and proclaims it good. We must, as Luke's Gospel passage today affirms, believe God when he tells us he has numbered the hairs on our heads --- so precious does he consider us!

Once we do that, once we allow God's love to fill us with a mercy that justifies, we will be empowered to do truly good works. There will be no discrepancy between the inner and the outer person as there was for so many of the Pharisees, no conflict between the Law and the law of our hearts. While we live the law written on our hearts more purely and exhaustively, we will fulfill the Law itself --- and we will do both in Christ. Neither will we create a message of terrifying judgment or foster a religion of fear in others. Instead we will proclaim a Gospel of Divine mercy doing justice. But as Paul and Luke both knew this means "believing God" and letting go of any tendencies to trust ourselves alone. Both knew that life in Communion with God (righteousness) was a free gift, something we had to allow to take hold of us, not something we could ever achieve or grasp for ourselves.

My prayer today then is that each and all of us may be able to risk "believing God" and relinquish of any vestiges of a religion of either hypocrisy or fear. As in the Gospel antiphon today, we cry out to God, [[May your kindness, O LORD, be upon us;who have put our hope in you.]] With our whole hearts and lives may we each trust that it will be so according to God's own promises of mercy. After all, that is the very meaning of every Amen we say.

Letting go of Childish Things

Today's reading from Paul is one of the most beautiful passages about love in all of the Old and New Testa-ments. But the point of the reading is especially important for hermits who seek to live in solitude or others who find themselves otherwise isolated and alienated from the faith community of their local Church. The very first line of 1 Cor 12:31-13:13 sets the lesson: [[Brothers and Sisters: Strive eagerly for the greatest spiritual gifts. But I shall show you a still more excellent way!]] Paul then goes on to list a number of recognizable spiritual gifts including speaking in tongues, knowledge (including mystical knowledge), and faith (including the faith to move mountains!) but reminds the Corinthians that without love these gifts and indeed, the person herself, are nothing at all. (Despite medieval attempts to aggrandize being "nothing." Paul is clearly disapproving of being nothing here.) Paul's argument through the rest of the passage is clear, if one truly loves then one has every other thing as well; in truly loving, all the spiritual gifts, which are partial and finite, find their completion and eternity. Moreover without love these gifts are empty, void, possibly illusory (or worse), and disedifying.

One of the most salient criticisms of eremitical life is the observation that the hermit has no one around to love or be loved by in the truly demanding and concrete ways human beings require to grow in Gospel love and authentic humanity. This observation has caused some Church Fathers to deny the validity of the eremitical life. It is true that I, for instance, can write moving blog posts, articles, and chapters about eremitical life as essentially loving and about eremitical solitude as essentially dialogical or covenantal, but, as Paul clearly says, [[If I speak in human tongues or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal.]] I might get some attention with and even praise for what I write, but unless it is clearly informed by genuine love, it will be empty and ultimately meaningless. Moreover, the validity or at least the quality of my vocation itself, including the mystical dimensions of my prayer, would need to be seriously questioned in such an instance. As Paul says, [[if there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing, if tongues, they will cease, and if knowledge [referring to mystical knowledge], it too will be brought to nothing for each and all of these will pass away.]]

We hermits may err in our vocations in many ways but it seems to me that given today's reading and the criticism of some Church Fathers (and the affirmations of all genuine hermits!), our focus, even in maintaining appropriate degrees of physical solitude and silence, must be on our growth in our capacity to love others in Christ both effectively and concretely --- even should we sometimes err against solitude in doing so. This tension between physical solitude and the commandment to truly love one another is always present in the hermit's life. It is certainly not acceptable to speak about loving humanity while one fails to love the individual persons sitting in the pews next to or around us --- much less claiming such a love while eschewing their company. "I love humanity, it's people I can't stand," may be darkly humorous in a Peanuts cartoon strip, but in the life of a hermit it is a blasphemy.

The emphasis on loving others in concrete ways and circumstances is one reason every hermit maintains the importance of hospitality --- whether that means opening one's hermitage to others in specific ways or participating in the local parish community in limited ways; it is also the reason hermits form lauras or are associated with parishes and communities; these are not optional but, even when necessarily limited, are essential to the eremitical life itself and certainly to the lives of those who are privileged via their professions and explicit commission by the Church to call themselves Catholic Hermits. In other words, community and the commitment to concrete forms of loving are critical dimensions of ANY authentic eremitical vocation, even those to complete reclusion; loving effectively and fully is, according to Paul, the truest sign of human wholeness and holiness, the truest sign of genuinely spiritual gifts. (The would-be recluse who is incapable of loving others effectively will be unlikely to be allowed to embrace reclusion.This is one of the reasons the Church requires serious vetting and supervision of eremitical recluses).

Part of the reason for this emphasis on concrete human loving is the especial ease with which a hermit (or other solitary person) can fool themselves about their own degree of spiritual growth or the nature of the spiritual gifts they have been given.  In today's first reading Paul has chosen not to take the Corinthians to task over the authenticity or inauthenticity of their spiritual gifts despite their tendency to self-delusion. Instead of calling them frauds he reminds them they are children. To motivate them to change and grow he speaks to and captures their attention by focusing on the thing which seems to  capture their imagination, namely, their drive and desire for more and more excellent spiritual gifts. He wants them to understand that love is the greatest divine gift, but also that it is the criterion by which all other gifts are truly measured and then brought to completion. Prophecy without love is not of God. The ability to speak in tongues without love is empty and essentially godless; mystical experiences or knowledge without the ability to love others in concrete ways is not authentic. One may have all kinds of moving and extraordinary experiences in solitary prayer, but  in terms of the spiritual life these are, at best, often "childish things" if they remain fruitless. At other times they are simply delusional:  they may simply be ordinary dreams (which can be be insightful, no doubt) treated simplistically as visions, empty visions which, tragically, lead to nothing more than self-satisfaction and navel-gazing, and the psychological projection of one's own problems, conflicts, and struggles. Spiritual maturity implies the ability to love those persons who are precious to God and to do so as they truly need! Divine gifts, whatever the type, are meant to allow us to do this.

These mystical and other prayer experiences and psycho-logical manifes-tations, like everything else in our spiritual lives, must be tested or proved --- words which mean several things including measuring, fostering maturation, and helping to make stronger and truer. They must be integrated into one's everyday life and growth; they must be transformed into personal maturity and wisdom. They must lead to or be associated with the ability to love in concrete situations and relationships. Therefore they must, to the degree they are authentic, lead to patience and kindness. They must not lead to or be associated with arrogance or rudeness nor to a sense that one's spiritual life is somehow "superior" to that of "ordinary" parishes and people! They must be associated with other-centeredness and to genuine humility and they must not allow one to brood over injuries done to one nor to rejoice when evil befalls others. Any authentic hermit, indeed any person who finds that their prayer lives (and especially what they call mystical experiences) do not lead to these manifestations of genuine love must surrender them for (or at the very least complement them with) the demands of community which do lead more surely to these manifestations. One must let go of the manifestations of spiritual childhood for the spiritual wisdom of adulthood. (cf, On Discernment With Regard to Prayer.)

Paul's letter to the (perhaps) spiritually precocious community in Corinth reminds us especially then that spirituality, even and perhaps especially eremitical spirituality, is not a "me and God" only enterprise. That is NOT what God alone is enough means! Canon 603 is very clear that hermits in the Catholic Church, particularly those that live the life in the name of the Church embrace eremitical solitude for the salvation of others. The love a hermit cultivates in the hermitage and in her relatively limited encounters with those in her parish, diocese, monastery, etc is not a facile abstraction, an exercise in empty piety, much less a matter of meaningless if superficially impressive verbal expressions, (e.g., "Not everyone who says 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven!" or,"in praying do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do"). It is not enough to proclaim one's love for God or humanity while judging and despising people. What makes her vocation divine is the authentic love which motivates and empowers it. The moment a hermit forgets this or chooses isolation over eremitical solitude, she has embraced something which is not truly of God no matter how frequent or vivid the supposed mystical experiences that accompany it. Real union with God involves communion with others. It is the very nature of being a member of the Body of Christ and stands at the heart of Paul's concerns with adult faith and the community in Corinth.

Feast of St Thomas, Apostle

Today's Gospel focuses on the appearances of Jesus to the disciples, and one of the lessons one should draw from these stories is that we are indeed dealing with bodily resurrection, but therefore, with a kind of bodiliness which transcends the corporeality we know here and now. It is very clear that Jesus' presence among his disciples is not simply a spiritual one, in other words, and that part of Christian hope is the hope that we as embodied persons will come to perfection beyond the limits of death. It is not just our souls which are meant to be part of the new heaven and earth, but our whole selves, body and soul.

The scenario with Thomas continues this theme, but is contextualized in a way which leads homilists to focus on the whole dynamic of faith with seeing, and faith despite not having seen. It also makes doubt the same as unbelief and plays these off against faith, as though faith cannot also be served by doubt. But doubt and unbelief are decidedly NOT the same things. We rarely see Thomas as the one whose doubt (or whose demands!) SERVES true faith, and yet, that is what today's Gospel is about. Meanwhile, Thomas also tends to get a bad rap as the one who was separated from the community and doubted what he had not seen with his own eyes. The corollary here is that Thomas will not simply listen to his brother and sister disciples and believe that the Lord has appeared to or visited them. But I think there is something far more significant going on in Thomas' proclamation that unless he sees the wounds inflicted on Jesus in the crucifixion, and even puts his fingers in the very nail holes, he will not believe.

What Thomas, I think, wants to make very clear is that we Christians believe in a crucified Christ, and that the resurrection was God's act of validation of Jesus as scandalously and ignominiously Crucified. I think Thomas knows on some level anyway, that insofar as the resurrection really occured, it does not nullify what was achieved on the cross. Instead it renders permanently valid what was revealed (made manifest and made real) there. In other words, Thomas knows if the resurrection is really God's validation of Jesus' life and establishes him as God's Christ, the Lord he will meet is the one permanently established and marked as the crucified One. The crucifixion was not some great misunderstanding which could be wiped away by resurrection. Instead it was an integral part of the revelation of the nature of truly human and truly divine existence. Whether it is the Divine life, authentic human existence, or sinful human life --- all are marked and revealed in one way or another by the signs of Jesus' cross. For instance, ours is a God who has journeyed to the very darkest, godless places or realms human sin produces, and has become Lord of even those places. He does not disdain them even now but is marked by them and will journey with us there --- whether we are open to him doing so or not --- because Jesus has implicated God there and marked him with the wounds of an exhaustive kenosis.

Another piece of this is that Jesus is, as Paul tells us, the end of the Law and it was Law that crucified him. The nail holes and wounds in Jesus' side and head -- indeed every laceration which marked him -- are a sign of legal execution -- both in terms of Jewish and Roman law. We cannot forget this, and Thomas' insistence that he really be dealing with the Crucified One reminds us vividly of this fact as well. The Jewish and Roman leaders did not crucify Jesus because they misunderstood him, but because they understood all-too-clearly both Jesus and the immense power he wielded in his weakness and poverty. They understood that he could turn the values of this world, its notions of power, authority, etc, on their heads. They knew that he could foment profound revolution (religious and otherwise) wherever he had followers. They chose to crucify him not only to put an end to his life, but to demonstrate he was a fraud who could not possibly have come from God; they chose to crucify him to terrify those who might follow him into all the places discipleship might really lead them --- especially those places of human power and influence associated with religion and politics. The marks of the cross are a judgment (krisis) on this whole reality.

There are many gods and even manifestations of the real God available to us today, and so there were to Thomas and his brethren in those first days and weeks following the crucifixion of Jesus. When Thomas made his declaration about what he would and would not believe, none of these were crucified Gods or would be worthy of being believed in if they were associated with such shame and godlessness. Thomas knew how very easy it would be for his brother and sister disciples to latch onto one of these, or even to fall back on entirely traditional notions in reaction to the terribly devastating disappointment of Jesus' crucifixion. He knew, I think, how easy it might be to call the crucifixion and all it symbolized a terrible misunderstanding which God simply reversed or wiped away with the resurrection -- a distasteful chapter on which God has simply turned the page. Thomas knew that false prophets showed up all the time. He knew that a God who is distant and all-powerful is much easier to believe in (and follow) than one who walks with us even in our sinfulness or who empties himself to become subject to the powers of sin and death, especially in the awful scandal and ignominy of the cross --- and who expects us to do essentially the same.

In other words, Thomas' doubt may have had less to do with the FACT of a resurrection, than it had to do with his concern that the disciples, in their loss, grief, desperation, guilt, and the immense social pressure they faced to renounce Jesus and the God he revealed, had truly met and clung to the real Lord, the crucified One. In this way their own discipleship will come to be marked by the signs of the cross as they preach, suffer, and serve in the name (and so, in the paradoxical power) of THIS Lord and no other. Only he could inspire them; only he could sustain them; only he could accompany them wherever true discipleship led them.

Paul said, "I want to know Christ crucified and only Christ crucified" because only this Christ had transformed sinful, godless reality with his presence, only this Christ had redeemed even the realms of sin and death by remaining open to God even within these realities. Only this Christ would journey with us to the unexpected and unacceptable places, and in fact, only he would meet us there with the promise and presence of a God who would bring life out of them. Thomas, I believe, knew precisely what Paul would soon proclaim himself, and it is this, I think, which stands behind his insistence on seeing the wounds and put his fingers in the very nail holes. He wanted to be sure his brethren were putting their faith in the crucified One, the one who turned everything upside down and relativized every other picture of God we might believe in. He became the great doubter because of this, but I suspect that instead he was the most faithful and astute theologian among the original Apostles. He, like Paul, wanted to know Christ Crucified and ONLY Christ Crucified.

We should not trivialize Thomas' witness by transforming him into a run of the mill empiricist and doubter (though doubting is an important piece of growth in faith)!! Instead we should imitate his insistence: we are called upon to be followers of the Crucified God, and no other. Every version of God we meet should be closely examined for nail holes, and the lance wound. Every one should be checked for signs that this God is capable of and generous enough to assume such suffering on behalf of a creation he would reconcile and make whole. Only then do we know this IS the God proclaimed in the Gospels and the Epistles of Paul, the only one worthy of being followed even into the darkest reaches of human sin and death, the only One who meets us in the unexpected and even unacceptable place, the only one who loves us with an eternal love from which nothing can separate us.

Who Will Save Me from this Body of Death?

I received a question yesterday regarding someone (a Catholic) who felt he was such a terrible sinner that he could not be forgiven by God. He felt abandoned by God and by Mary. The person who sent me this email had suggested the person offer up his sufferings and this person replied that they were the result of his sin; he could not offer them to God. He is entirely correct in this --- at least if this offering was meant to make the situation better in some propitiatory way. Such an offering could only make things worse. The ONLY solution to such a situation, and indeed to any of our situations of sinfulness is the mercy of God freely given and humbly received as wholly undeserved. I had already been writing a reflection on the first reading from Friday (Paul's letter to the Romans) so I decided to combine the two here.  Bearing in mind Paul's anguished and jubilant cry from Friday: "Who can save me from this body of death? Praise be to Jesus Christ!" my own response was as follows:

 If there is anything the Scriptures tell us again and again it is that God does not abandon ANYONE. (Even his abandonment of Christ was unique and more complex than simple much less absolute abandonment. Still, it was an expression of the abandonment we each deserve but which God in Christ also redeems.) In Christ, and especially in Christ's passion, God embraced the complete scope of sin and death so that we might be redeemed from these; in Christ he journeyed to the depths of hell to rescue those who were there. Israel failed again and again, committed idolatry, apostasy, etc etc, and NEVER did God abandon her.

It is prideful to believe the sins we commit are too big for God to forgive or the state of sin from which these come is too great for God to reconcile and heal. The only thing more dangerous is to refuse that forgiveness when it is offered; THAT is the sin against the Holy Spirit, the sin against the power of the Spirit working in us that says, "Let me forgive you and change your life." Your correspondent has not committed that sin, nor does he need to. The Holy Spirit will continue to prompt him to repent and to allow God to heal him. Even at the moment of death he will be asked to make a decision for or against God. In part this is what death is, the moment when we make a final choice which ratifies or denies the choices of our life.
 

This person need not offer his sufferings but he does need to trust in Christ's, especially in his obedience in his suffering and the sufficiency of these things together. There, Paul tells us, is nothing he can do on his own but get farther and farther from God. That was the point of Friday's first reading from Romans. If you recall Paul calls out, "Who will save me from this body of death (meaning this whole self under the sway of sin). Law can't do it, good works cannot do it, offering up our own puny sufferings cannot do it (even those which are not the fruit of our own sin!). Only God in Christ can do it. While you say you pray that God might act on this person's behalf, there is no might about Jesus or God doing so or acting to free him from his sin.He has already done so in Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. The Church mediates that to us in innumerable ways. But this person must allow that to be true in his own life. Again, as the reading from Friday and today make clear, there is simply NOTHING we can do on our own. We are enslaved by sin Unless and Until we allow grace to work in us. Grace is unmerited always and everywhere. God offers us the grace of the victory already achieved by Christ time after time every day of our lives. We have to admit, with Paul, that the only answer to our enslavement is to accept that forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, etc on God's own terms, that is, without ANY sense that we have merited or earned it.

 The temptation to do something religious (including offering up our sufferings) to earn God's forgiveness is the most pernicious and dangerous temptation people face. I would argue it is far more dangerous than the temptation to sexual sins, etc precisely because we mistakenly believe it is unequivocally good at all times. Paul knew this well. He knew that the Law acted as temptation in peoples' lives and so, he came to see it as a school master --- not to teach us what was good, but to instruct us about our weakness and incapacity to do anything salvific -- or even anything good --- on our own. In fact, Paul actually says that God gave us the Law for this very purpose and even so that our own state of sin might be intensified in such a way as to make us ready to cry out for a redeemer. That redeemer has been given to us. His death, resurrection and ascension have accomplished that redemption. We simply have to receive him and the new life he offers us as Paul himself did --- with cries of both abject helplessness and gratitude. 

Paul teaches emphatically: [[You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.]] While we were entirely powerless, while we were godless sinners estranged from God, from our deepest selves, and from the whole of creation, while, that is, we were wholly incapable of acting in a way which would resolve the situation but instead made things ever worse, God acted out of an unfathomable love to reconcile us to our truest selves, to Godself, others and to creation.  This is the GOOD NEWS from which we live and which we proclaim --- nothing other and nothing less.

I hope this is helpful.

A note on translations. Some versions of last Friday's first lection read "Who will save me from this mortal body?" I prefer, "Who will save me from this body of death?" because it more clearly connotes a self enslaved by the powers of sin and death. "Mortal body" is too easy to hear as simply referring to a material body which is finite and will die. Body of death refers more powerfully to a self in whom death is actively at work, not only in ourselves but in the world around us, a body (self) which makes death present as a sort of awful and active "contagion". In Paul's theology human beings find themselves to be either a whole self under the sway (enslavement) of sin (for which Paul uses the terms, "flesh body", "flesh" or "body of death") or under the sway (enslavement) of grace (for which he uses the term "Spiritual body", etc.).

Feast of the Conversion of Paul (Reprise)

Today is the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, and my own feastday as well. We know Paul's story well. A good Jew, indeed, a scholar of the Law who saw the early Church as a distortion and danger to orthodoxy, one who understood that a crucified person was godless and shameful and could in no way be a faithful Jew or prophet, much less God's anointed one, persecuted the Church in the name of orthodoxy, a zeal for the integrity of Israel's covenant with God, and for the glory of the God who maintained that covenant. In sincere faithfulness to the covenant Paul hounded men, women and children, many of whom were his own neighbors. He sent them to prison and thence to their deaths. He, at least technically (according to Luke's version of things), colluded in the stoning of Stephen and sought to wipe Christians from the face of the earth.

While on a campaign to Damascus to root out and destroy more "apostates" Paul had a dramatic vision and heard someone call out to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Paul inquired who this voice was and was told, "I am Jesus whom you persecuteth." In that moment everything Paul knew, believed, and practiced, was turned upside down. God had vindicated the One whom Paul knew to be godless acording to the Law. He was alive rather than eternally dead, risen through the power of God as the Christians had claimed. For Paul nothing would ever be the same again. So it is with conversions.


Perhaps it is a matter of faulty perception on my part, and if so, I apologize, but it seems to me that conversion is not something most Catholics regard as pertinent to their lives. Conversion is something non-Catholics do when they become Catholics (or vice versa!). It is a onetime event that those "born into the faith" don't (it is thought) need to worry about! Those "born Catholic" may think in terms of "growing in their faith" or "becoming a better Catholic" (and there is certainly nothing wrong with thinking this way!) but "conversion" seems to be a word that is simply little-used for these processes. Somehow (perhaps because of the story of Paul!) conversion is too dramatic and messy a process it seems. It disrupts and is marked by difficult and abrupt discontinuities and conflicts or tensions. It demands a spiritual praxis which sets one apart from the norm, a prayer life which is central, engagement with the Word of God which is profound and more extensive than usual -- not minimal or nominal, and a faith life which does not tolerate compartmentalization. Growth, becoming, etc, are safer words --- demanding, yes, but somehow less total and more socially acceptable than references to "conversion."

In monastic life, and especially in Benedictine monastic life the primary vow is to conversion of life. This vow includes those ordinarily made in religious life, the vows of poverty and chastity. One commits oneself to continually allow God to remake one into the image of Christ (and into one's truest self). There is a sense that such conversion is a gradual and lifelong process of growth and maturation, yes, but there is also an openness to conversion as dramatic and all-consuming. Here conversion is something which does not allow the monastic to divide their lives into sacred and profane or to compartmentalize them into the spiritual and the non-spiritual. Here the Word of God is expected  and allowed to convict, challenge, transform, and empower. Here the Spirit of God is accepted as the spirit which moves within us enlivening, edifying, consolidating, and purifying --- the Spirit which humanizes and sanctifies us into the covenant reality we are most truly. It is a pattern which should be true of every Christian.

Paul's initial conversion experience was dramatic by any standards, but drama aside, it did for Paul what encounter and engagement with the Word of God is meant to do to any of us. It caused him to see his entire world and life in terms of the risen and Crucified Christ. It put law completely at the service of love and made compassion the way to accomplish justice. It made human weakness the counterpart of divine strength, mercy and forgiveness the way God's will is accomplished, and in every other way turned the values of this world on their head. May each of us open ourselves to the kind of conversion of life we celebrate today.