October 20 through October 26
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(October 20, 2024: Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time)
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“Through his suffering my servant shall justify many.”
Following the admonition of Christ that we should be the servants of others wouldn’t sound so daunting if it weren’t for one little word.
Suffering.
Jesus is very clear: to serve is to suffer and to suffer is to serve. This statement begs the question: did Jesus serve because he liked pain?
Consider the meaning of the word “suffering”. The American Heritage Dictionary describes suffering as “to feel pain or distress; sustain loss, injury, harm or punishment.” Jesus certainly experienced all these things in a big way. In this regard, we have in Christ one who is able to sympathize with us. (Hebrews)
But suffering is more than simply experiencing pain. The same dictionary directs the reader to consider the roots of the English word servant, and therein we find a powerful revelation: in its root meaning, to suffer is to carry, to bear, to “bear children.”
Suffering is not simply the ability to experience pain. No, suffering is the willingness to forbear, to persevere, to carry on in doing what is right and just, what is healthy and holy even in the face of opposition or resistance. Suffering is the pain that comes from efforts at bringing forth life in the lives of others.
This kind of suffering is not powerless passivity. This suffering – divine suffering – is about being proactive. This suffering – this service – is a matter of choice: the choice to love.
Jesus did not love to suffer. Jesus suffered precisely because he was willing to love. Jesus suffered – he persevered – in his commitment to being a source of love in the lives of others.
That’s what made Jesus a servant. That’s what can make us true servants. Like Jesus, while our service will be marked with suffering, it is far more important that it be marked with love.
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(October 21, 2024: Monday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Take care to guard against all greed…”
Greed is defined as “an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.”
What’s important to note is that greed is not equated with merely possessing material wealth, but that greed is also about having an excessive or inordinate desire to possess material wealth. It isn’t about the amount of the wealth; it’s about the size – and intensity - of the desire for wealth.
Francis de Sales certainly understood this distinction. In his Introduction to the Devout Life, he wrote:
“I willingly grant that you may take care to increase your wealth and resources, provided this is done not only justly but properly and charitably. However, if you are strongly attached to the goods you possess, too solicitous about them, set your heart on them, always have them in your thoughts and fear losing them with a strong, anxious fear, then, believe me, you are suffering from a kind of fever. If you find your heart very desolated and afflicted at the loss of property, believe me, you love it too much…” (IDL, Part III, Chapter 14, p. 163)
The Gospel parable is a classic example of what Francis de Sales described. The rich man isn’t condemned because he is rich. No, the rich man is condemned because he does not even consider sharing his good fortune – his rich harvest – with others.
Note the distinction that Jesus makes in saying, “Guard against all greed”, because Jesus isn’t limiting greed just to material possessions. Many of the things to which we cling – many of the things about which we have inordinate desires to keep for ourselves - aren’t material at all: our time, our opinions, our plans, our preferences, our comforts, our routines, our ways of seeing things and our ways of doing things are just a sampling of the many things to which we excessively cling.
What kinds of greed – in any form, in all forms - might we need to be careful to guard against, today?
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(October 21, 2024: Tuesday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“He is our peace…”
In a letter to Mother de Chantal, Francis de Sales wrote:
“I entreat you to keep very close to Jesus Christ and your Our Lady and to your good angel in all your business, so that the multiplicity of your many affairs may not make you anxious nor their difficulties dismay you. Do things one by one as best you can, and apply your mind loyally but gently and sweetly. If God gives you good issue we shall bless him for it; if his pleasure should be otherwise, we will bless him all the same. And it will be enough for you that you did your best in complete good faith, since Our Lord and reason do not demand results in things we do, but only our faithful and whole-hearted cooperation, endeavor and diligence; for these depend on us, whereas success does not. God will bless your good intention in undertaking this journey...” (Stopp, Selected Letters, pp. 195-196)
Jesus is the embodiment of this spirit. In success or setback, in acceptance or rejection, in good times or in bad times, Jesus always possessed inner peace in the midst of the multiplicity of his affairs; his “whole-hearted cooperation, endeavor and diligence” were united to his Father’s will. What Jesus did or did not accomplish throughout his earthly ministry was not nearly as important as the fidelity of his relationship with his Father.
So whatever you accomplish – or don’t accomplish – just this day, try above all things to do this one thing.
To remain in peace!
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(October 23, 2024: Tuesday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come…”
We all know the expression, “Hindsight is 20-20.” As we know from our own experience, often times it is much easier to recognize the truth about something hours, days, weeks or perhaps, even years after the fact. While hindsight is better than having no sight at all, there are certain limitations associated with recognizing how God has been active in one’s life only after further reflection.
This pattern gets played out time and time again in numerous accounts of Jesus’ life and ministry. People didn’t seem to recognize that the Son of Man was standing right in front of them. Put another way, insofar as they were not prepared to recognize who Jesus was before he appeared, they failed to recognize him when he actually arrived!
The aim of the Spiritual Directory – the goal of the Direction of Intention – is to help us to acquire foresight when it comes to recognizing the activity and presence of God in our lives. Living in each and every present moment challenges us to anticipate the variety of ways in which God may visit, speak to or inspire us just this day and to recognize God’s divine activity and presence as it actually occurs in each and every present moment - and not merely after the fact.
In the movie Field of Dreams, Doctor “Moonlight” Graham (played by actor Burt Lancaster) says to Ray Kinsella, “You know, we just don't recognize the most significant moments of our lives while they're happening. Back then I thought, 'Well, there'll be other days.' I didn't realize that that was the only day.”
May God give us the awareness that we need to be prepared for the most significant moments - and each and every moment - in our lives, each and every day. But then, when you consider that we have only a limited number of moments allotted to us on this earth, shouldn’t every moment be a significant moment?
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(October 24, 2024: Thursday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”
In a film released in 2004, Denzel Washington stars as John Creasy, a despondent former CIA operative/Force Recon Marine officer-turned-bodyguard. Creasey gets a shot at redemption when he is hired to protect the daughter of a wealthy businessman in Mexico City. When the nine-year-old girl is kidnapped and held for ransom, Washington’s character will stop at nothing to get the young girl back, even to the point (spoiler alert!) of giving his life in exchange for hers.
The name of the film is Man on Fire.
Jesus Christ clearly was a man on fire. He tells us so in today’s Gospel selection from Luke. All throughout the three years of his public ministry, Jesus demonstrated again and again to us that he would stop at nothing to proclaim the power and promise of the Kingdom of God – forgiving the sinner, healing the blind, lame and leprous, finding the lost, raising the lowly, humbling the proud and challenging the haughty. His efforts not only won him many friends, but also made him more than a few enemies. Undaunted by the challenges of his vocation, Jesus remained faithful to the work of redemption, even to the point of giving his very life for others.
Earlier this week, we remembered the life and legacy of John Paul II. Like Jesus himself, John Paul II was a man on fire for the Gospel. We recall the electricity that he generated wherever he went when he was in the prime of his life and papacy - he literally traveled all around the globe in his attempts to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ. We remember his surviving being shot by a would-be assassin, and how that attempt on his life began a slow and protracted period of physical decline. We witnessed his battle with Parkinson’s disease, and the death that it inevitably hastened. Yet through it all, John Paul faced his mortality with grace and confidence and with a fire – however diminished in the end – that was forever part and parcel of the person he was.
Jesus also wants us to be men and women on fire with the love of God and neighbor. Jesus also wants us – his brothers and sisters – to be unrelenting in demonstrating in our own lives the power and promise of the Kingdom of God.
Today, how might we get “fired up” for the sake of the Gospel?
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(October 25, 2024: Friday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Live in a manner worthy of the call you have received...”
What call have we received? We are sons and daughters of God; we are brothers and sisters of Jesus; we are temples of God’s Holy Spirit.
How do we live in a manner worthy of this call? St. Paul is clear and unambiguous: “Live with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
In today’s Responsorial Psalm, we prayed the words “Lord, this is the people that longs to see your face”. How do we know if we are making progress in our efforts to “live in a manner worthy of the call” we have received?
The answer is - look to see if other people see in our thoughts, our affections, our attitudes and our actions something of the face of God.
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(October 26, 2024: Saturday, Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time)
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“Grace was given to each of us according to the measure of God’s gift....”
In his Treatise on the Love of God, Francis de Sales wrote:
“God acts in our works, and we co-operate in God’s action. God leaves for our part all the merit and profit of our services and good works; we leave God all the honor and praise thereof, acknowledging that the growth, the progress, and the end of all the good we do depends on God’s mercy, finishing what God began. O God, how merciful is God’s goodness to us in thus distributing his bounty!”
God has great expectations for us: “Life on high with Jesus Christ”. God – through his mercy, that is, through his generosity – also gives us the grace we need to strive to meet those expectations. How can we possibly show our appreciation for the “grace that was given to each of us according to the measure of God’s gift”? Perhaps St. Francis de Sales said it best. “The measure of love is to love without measure.”
God’s love in our regard is certainly without measure. To what degree can the same be said of our love for one another?
Today!
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