God's Glory in the Death of Lazarus

When Jesus arrives at Lazarus’ house after his death, Martha mentions that if Jesus had been there, Lazarus never would have died.  Then Mary mentions it.  Then the people at large mention it.  So it is mentioned three times.  

But Jesus did allow Lazarus to die.  Why?  Jesus says Himself, “This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it.” (Jn 11:4)  Jesus allowed Lazarus to die so that he could raise Him from the dead and show the glory of God.

When we become ill, or lose someone close to us, or don’t get the job we wanted, we generally ask God “Why?”  We are like Martha and Mary and the people at large, who say, “If you had only been here…”  But Jesus allows these setbacks and sufferings so that his glory can be manifested.

And his glory is manifested when a person loses something very dear to him, like his wife or his health, yet continues to praise God.  God’s glory is manifest in people like Job, who lose it all, yet remain faithful to the Lord.  People like Job make the fundamental assertion that “God is good,” even when all evidence seems to be stacked against His goodness.

God loves faithfulness, and it is faithfulness that allows a person to remain with God through the difficulties.  Difficulties make our faithfulness strong, and the more faithful we become, the more like God we become, and the more His glory is made manifest in us.   

The Name on Jesus' Stone in Heaven

Emmanuel, "God with us."  Maybe Emmanuel is the name on Jesus' stone held by the Father in heaven (Rev 2:17).  Jesus means "God saves," and in heaven Jesus' salvific mission has ended, and he is simply with the saved, the angels, the Father and the Holy Spirit.

No one is supposed to know what is written on a person's stone.  But isn't it like the Son, in the fervor of his love, to reveal his most hidden self?  Emmanuel, "God with us."  The truth of this name has begun to unfold, and unfolds in each of our lives as the name "Jesus" is fulfilled.  At the end of time, when God is all in all, maybe the Son will be praised as Jesus and rejoiced with as Emmanuel.

Our Two Cents

The widow puts two cents into the temple treasury.  According to Jesus, this is "all the living that she had." (Lk 21:4)  It was two cents, not one cent.  It's easier to put in your whole living if you just have one cent.  But to have two cents, and to give both of them away to God, that is remarkable.

It would be easier to think "I have two cents, one for me and one for God."  But no, she gives God both of them.  You'd think that every preservation-instinct-alarm-bell would go off in her head, and would manifest themselves in a flurry of excuses like "It's so little money and the temple treasury is so rich!" or "I'm an old woman and I need to take care of myself," or "I'm a widow and don't have a husband to take care of me, I should save this money."

We all have two cents: a body and a soul.  Really, they are all that we have, all that we are.  We decide whether to give them to God, or whether to make excuses about why we need to hold onto this pleasure of the flesh, or that interest of the soul.  To give them away to God means to rely on Him, just as this widow did for her next meal.  God will provide us with all the joy and peace that we need, we just have to place our body and soul into the life of Christ, the Treasure of the Church.

Avoiding Catholic Hypocrisy

Jesus upbraided the crowd for not interpreting the present time as being the Messianic Age.  They didn’t realize that the Christ was among them, so Jesus says to them, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming’; and so it happens.  And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens.  You hypocrites!  You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

It may seem harsh at first that Jesus is calling the people hypocrites for not realizing that he is the Christ.  But we have to think of the tone that Jesus probably spoke these words in.  I doubt he had a harsh tone of voice.  His tone of voice probably had frustration in it, but also affection.  Harshness is born of fear, and Jesus wasn’t afraid of the people.  He loved them.

But why is a person hypocritical for not interpreting the present time?  To answer this, let’s turn to the present time.  We are currently in the Messianic Age, so Christ is approaching us directly at each moment, and forming His Church according to His will.  He is constantly forming the Church to address the needs and concerns of the contemporary age, because Christ reaches out to people where they are.  

When a person does not interpret the way Christ is reaching out to him and the rest of the world, but rather has his own plan for his salvation and apostolate, he quickly becomes hypocritical.  This is because he claims he is on the path to sanctity, and that he is leading others toward God, but really he is ostracizing himself from the Body of Christ by choosing his own plan over God’s plan.

The people whom Jesus addresses in the quoted Gospel passage were hypocrites in part because they could interpret physical signs but not spiritual signs, but also because they had their own plan for what the Messiah should look like, and Jesus was not falling into line with their ideals.  They claimed to be God’s people, yet they were denying God and his plan.  This is hypocrisy.

It’s up to us to do our best to keep up with the Church so that we don’t end up being hypocrites.  There are several ways to do this.  First, we need to listen to our Pope, the Vicar of Christ, who sets out a plan of action for the Church.  Our current Pope seems to emphasize the importance of joy, tenderness and mercy when relating to others.  According to Evangelii Gaudium all members of the Church are called to spread the faith with joy.  Not a bad plan.

Another way to remain in Christ is by listening to priests who, in their homilies and meditations, continually bring the Word of God to life in our contemporary circumstances.  The Word of God is living and effective, and priests interpret it for the present age.  We can also interpret Scripture ourselves, and do our best to apply it to our lives.

It’s the struggle of every person who calls himself Christian to let go of everything that goes against the will of God.  God wants us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, which means doing our best to live without hypocrisy, in the joy of Christ who is constantly coming out to us and inviting us into the feast.  All we have to do is say “yes.”

The Hidden Leaven

Jesus says of the kingdom of God, “It is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till it was all leavened.”

Just like the mustard seed that is hidden in the earth, the leaven is hidden in “three measures of meal.”  God’s kingdom is hidden, but becomes visible by its effects.  The dough rises, though we don’t see the leaven itself once it is hidden in the meal.  Our own experience of God is often that he is hidden, yet we can still see the effect he has on our lives, and feel the peace and joy of His presence.

When the leaven is heated up, it creates bubbles of carbon dioxide, which make the dough rise.  God does something similar in our own lives.  He expands our interiors and makes us free.  We catch glimpses of the vast horizons of the Spirit of God.  He opens us up by helping us to let go of attachments until we are empty inside, so that we can be filled by God’s love.

The meal can be considered the stuff that God works with.  He works with our souls and our bodies, with our habits and our passions.  He takes all of this, along with our flaws and even our sins, and leavens it, raising it up toward heaven.  

The mustard seed was sown in the garden by a man, and the leaven is hidden in the meal by a woman.  The woman hiding the leaven is just like Mary, who hid Jesus in her womb for nine months; and the man sowing the seed is just like Jesus, who, as the new Adam, tends the gardens of our souls.

The Mustard Seed

God says of His kingdom, “It is like a grain of a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.”  

The aspect of this parable we always think of is that mustard seeds are tiny and become the largest of trees (shrubs), and in this way are like the kingdom of God.  That’s what Jesus himself says in Matthew.  But in Luke, quoted above, Jesus does not interpret the parable for us, which leaves us some space to interpret it ourselves, remembering that the most important interpretation is Christ’s.

Mustard trees can be as wide as they are tall.  They are like semi-circles, and they can be quite messy, which makes them look like comfortable homes for birds.  They are quite full, too, so they are a good place for birds to get out of the sun.  The Christian tries to be like a comfortable home for the people who spend time with him.  It is good for his presence to be like a cool shade which provides his friends a nice rest from the outside world.

Mustard trees produce a purple fruit that is sweet and nutritious.  It is up to every Christian to bear fruit, and for their fruit to mix sweetness and substance.  Substance without sweetness is harsh and ultimately resented by the person who receives it.  Sweetness without substance is ephemeral and doesn’t really help.  The right balance hits home but in a gentle way.

When a seed is planted, it is hidden in the earth.  It goes through a period of dormancy, before it germinates and puts out shoots.  These shoots remain underground until they get large enough to break into the open air.  The kingdom of God is also hidden at first, and can come into a person’s life without his even being aware of it.  This time of dormancy and germination is the preparation for the epiphany a person has when he suddenly becomes aware of the kingdom of God: When he suddenly sprouts into the light.

The fruits (and seeds) of a mustard tree aren’t used to make mustard, nor are they popularly consumed like apples.  But the mustard tree has borne a fruit more wonderful than any other tree: It has been used by Jesus to reveal the mystery of the kingdom of God.

Living from the Heart

When someone speaks from the heart, people listen.  People love being in touch with the speaker, who seems to be able to reach everyone because he is speaking as a person to other people.  And these are the two motions of the heart: to know and to communicate.  The heart knows through experience, when it is touched by another person.  It communicates in words and actions.

It is usually a powerful experience when we hear a person speak from the heart.  It hasn’t come cheap for him: access to the heart takes work.  It involves removing the noise and distraction that drown out the words of the heart and make it unable to be touched.

By being silent and listening to himself a person can familiarize himself with his heart.  There are so many different voices swirling around one’s interior.  The key is to let those voices be heard, so that they can quiet down.  Once they quiet down, one begins to hear the words that come from the heart.  These words are like magma bubbles that pop into our consciousness.

One also accesses his heart by accepting his own littleness.  There is no such thing as a great man or woman.  We are all little children in God’s eyes.  Little children act from their hearts, and so should we.  But we get so confused in our own pride and our longing for recognition that we forget who we are.  The true heart is little, and can only be heard by little children.

Finally, one accesses the heart by allowing it to act and speak.  The heart usually moves in warmth.  People fear that if they’re warm with someone else the warmth will turn into heat.  But warmth remains just warmth unless a person decides to heat it up.  Being warm with others helps one to be warm with himself, and then he is more likely to open up to himself.

One must also let go of the tight control over one’s words.  It’s natural to fear what might come out if one stops controlling his words.  Also, controlling words can be good if it means not being nasty to someone else.  But to control one’s words for the sake of one’s own image just won’t fly with the heart.

A person who is in unity with his heart is one with himself.  He is not only able to act more effectively, because what he does he does with passion, but he is able to be more.  He is able to accept himself and be happy with who he is, which has a way of diffusing itself to other people.

A Path to Joy and Understanding

Joy comes to the soul that embraces its own flaws and those of others.  We are not meant to root them out as though they were weeds and we were the gardeners.  Flaws are meant to be shown mercy and patience, the way God showed mercy and patience toward the Israelites, or the way Jesus showed mercy and patience toward his disciples in the Gospel.

Flaws are not sins, they are defects that make it difficult to function normally, and the effects of those defects.  Who said we were meant to be perfectly ordered in this life?  When we accept our disorderliness, we're able to accept ourselves.  We are disordered creatures.  Original sin caused us to lose our integrity.  Now Jesus has come with a Gospel of mercy, not perfection.  If we want to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, we must be merciful.  If we have no flaws, we cut off a pathway of mercy in our lives.  St. Paul would boast of nothing but his weakness.

What better way to witness the mercy of God than by seeing that he continues to pour out his grace on us even though we have flaws and mess up?  God wants to show us the kind of Love that is there for us in our imperfection.  When we are weak, then we are strong.  When we are open about our flaws, then people can see our humanity.  When people witness the humanity of a Christian, they witness Jesus Himself.  

Does that mean we should adopt flaws to have a greater claim to God's mercy?  Of course not.  We already have enough flaws as it is, we just often can't see them.  But armed with God's mercy, we can begin to explore our own shortcomings, and make our way to a greater understanding of ourselves and of the God who Loves us.  Then the flaws will begin to work themselves out.

The Order of Knowing

One of the most obvious things in life, though it is often neglected, is that things are a certain way.  Things are only one way, and nothing is two things at once.  Everything is breathtakingly specific, and it's the specificity of being that makes it intelligible.  It's because things are one certain way that we're able to say "This object is this way and not any other way," and when we are able to say this we have learned something, so long as what we claim corresponds to the way things are.

So learning is a matter of knowing what is and what is not.  This involves listening to the way things are.  In order to learn we have to be silent, with quiet minds, so that when we interact with something the thing imprints itself on our minds, rather than having our minds be preoccupied with things that are not what we're observing.  Our minds are a specific way, and they must be free enough of distraction so that they can specifically conform to the object they are encountering.

When we encounter an object in a state of silence, we take in two fundamental things.  First, that the object exists; and second, that the object exists in a specific way.  The appreciation of the existence of a thing always comes first, then comes the understanding of its specificity.  So a person who is able to appreciate being is actually ahead of a scholar who lacks wonder but knows every word in the dictionary.  When the first step is neglected, and only the specificity of a thing is known, the person knows in an abstract way that is not grounded in reality.  

Beginner's luck is an interesting phenomenon that I think gets at what appreciation for existence is.  When the beginner first encounters a game he has a vision of it as a whole: he sees it as an existing totality.  Then, as he plays on, he starts to zero in on the specifics of the game, and loses his vision of the whole, his balance, thus getting worse before he can get better.  It's once he masters the game, or at least becomes proficient at it, that he regains his vision of the whole with a more profound perspective than he had at first.  This vision of the whole, this vision of being, is what is most enjoyable about knowing a thing.  In a perfect world, we learn specifics in order to further our appreciation for existence, and not the other way around.  So let's do what we can to be silent, and allow existence to speak to us in its gentle way, first in that it exists, second in how it exists.

Understanding Francis

Pope Francis is my spiritual father.  He is wise and loves from the heart.  He's free enough to love without fear.  Unfortunately, many people react to Francis in one of two ways: They either love him with an uninformed love that transforms him into whatever they want him to be; or they question him, because they think that in his boldness he will hurt the Church.

The uninformed love for Francis is common among people who don't pay much attention to what is actually going on in the Church.  They hope that Francis will change moral teachings.  They are like the biblical scholars who want to reshape the "historical Jesus," but end up just making Jesus look like themselves.

The second camp is the one that sees Francis as a danger.  They are afraid of someone who emphasizes love and compassion over truth and correction.  Of course, both are necessary, and Francis has both (the truth is he corrects the people who overemphasize correction).  But he looks to reconcile in a radical way, which leaves some people wishing he would place greater emphasis on what makes the Church different.

Many in this second camp think that as soon as the first camp realizes that Francis "is Catholic," in other words, holds to the moral teachings of the Church, they will abandon him.  But saying this frames the whole issue in precisely the way Francis is trying to teach us not to frame it: as though the Church is fundamentally just a structure that dispenses controversial moral values to a begrudging world.  That may not be the way the people of the second camp view the Church, but it's the way it seems to the outside world.

In the Gospel, Jesus rebukes the crowd, saying, "You hypocrites!  You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky; but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Lk 12:56).  It seems that Francis is gently saying this to Catholics who overemphasize moral teaching.  The way to reach people in the present age is not through emphasizing morality.  It's not through taking the posture that "I'm against abortion, you're for abortion, we have irreconcilable differences."  Francis does not want the Church to get a divorce from the modern world.  He wants the Church to embrace it with Divine Love, which is always true.

But, the second camp replies, Francis' rebuke of Catholic moralism, like when he said that some members of the Church are obsessed with certain doctrines like abortion, gives aid and comfort to forces against the Church.  But what about when Jesus said that whoever doesn't eat his flesh or drink his blood has no life in him?  His disciples probably thought they would look crazy if they stayed with Him.  People against Christ would have tons of ammunition from this statement.  Francis has the freedom, though, to say things that he knows might be misinterpreted, because people, especially his disciples, need to hear them.  Isn't that what Jesus Himself did with parables?  He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Between these two camps is another reaction to Francis.  It's one that gives him the benefit of the doubt, and works to understand where he is coming from.  I think that if we give him the benefit of the doubt, we'll realize that he is an extraordinary gift from God, with a lot to tell us about how to become saints in the modern world.  He is ushering in a springtime, which looks nothing like we thought it would, and it's up to us whether we want to bear fruit in the vineyard that he's tending, Christ's vineyard.

Note: A great way to better get to know Francis is by reading his daily reflections.  They are short and beautiful.  Check them out by going to www.vatican.va, and clicking on "Daily Meditations of the Holy Father" on the left side of the screen, third icon from the top.