Homily — Visitation

When considering the feast of Our Lady’s Visitation to Elizabeth, we are apt to be a little too hasty in applying its “meaning” to ourselves. We are likely, that is, to generalize and conclude at once that we are all naturally bearers of a mystery we ought to share with others, the mystery of who we are. True enough… But what exactly is the mystery we bear? Simply the mystery of our own existence, of our own goodness and good will? I wonder whether this is enough to save the world… To view things only in this way appears to me as deflating, because such moralism excludes from the Christian experience the sense of radical wonderment. It forgets God’s unaccountable desire, attested everywhere in Scripture, to dwell with us and use us as instruments of salvation. 

We should pay close attention to Elizabeth’s chief sentiment: How does this happen to me, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me?  These simple words contain the whole range of marveling Christian jubilation, triggered by God’s free initiative and its result in a historical event. The Visitation is Elizabeth’s personal way of experiencing the foundational mystery of the Word’s Incarnation. This question of Elizabeth’s, spoken in amazement and awe, ought to motivate our whole life of faith, too. The mystery of the Visitation is above all the revelation of God’s initiative, of God’s design to come to us through the cooperation of the Immaculate One, in order to make his home with us, accompany us in all our life’s trials, and transform our lives by his active presence. 

Only as a result of God coming to us in Jesus through Mary can we receive the eternal Word of salvation into our lives and allow him to become in us the source and energy of our service of love. Only as graced participants in a mystery greater than ourselves—the primal Mystery of the Incarnation—can we, in turn, become bearers of the same saving mystery for others. We do not share ourselves; we share Christ in us. And let us not forget, either, that baby John leapt for joy in his mother’s womb as a response to his divine cousin’s approach in Mary’s womb! Christian faith is not mainly about affirming conceptual truths or celebrating our own intrinsic human goodness, but above all about rejoicing ecstatically, about dancing for joy in our spirit in grateful reaction to an overwhelming Presence and Event: the coming of God to us in the human flesh of his Son.

Indeed, through a life steeped in prayer and the sacraments we must continually welcome the approach of the Word to us through the mediation of his and our human Mother. Only by so participating in the mystery of salvation as conceived by God’s Wisdom will we be able to live a life of fruitful charity. We do not bear ourselves; our whole bliss ought to be to become for others bearers of the one divine mystery of love with which we have first been graced.

Emptying Ourselves

We must empty ourselves, not only before God but also before our neighbor. In doing this we will be loving God and our neighbors for their own sake and not for our own sake. Our neighbor is nothing else but the presence of God among us.

CHARLES NICOLET, SJ 

Homily — The Ascension

As he blessed them, he parted from them and was taken up to heaven. They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God. 

This great joy that the disciples experienced is ours also. For with today’s Feast Jesus returns definitively to the Father. As Paul explained to the Ephesians he is now seated at the Father’s right hand, far above every principality, authority, power and dominion. All things have been put under his feet. From now on, Jesus reigns with the Father in perfect sovereignty and freedom over the whole of creation. He is not bound by any created thing and gives his love in perfect freedom. What’s more, in Christ our human nature has been lifted up with him, while he waits for us, his body, to join him. 

Jesus’ last instruction to the disciples was that they were to return to Jerusalem and to stay there “until you are clothed with power from on high.” Like the disciples we are called to use this period before Pentecost in prayer and joyful expectation. 

Before he departed from them at the Last Supper Jesus told his disciples. “…Whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. if you ask anything in my name, I will do it. (Jn 14:13)  The Father will send the Spirit in Jesus’ name (14:26). In this time we are to pray in his name, for it is only in his name that we will have a share in his glory. 

To pray in his name is to put on the mind of Christ. For Jesus, the path of ascent is the path of descent, the way of exaltation is the way of self-emptying. As St. Paul says in the Philippians hymn: “…though he was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave… he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted him…” 

In his prayer at the end of the Last Supper in John’s Gospel Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son many glorify you...” (Jn 17:1) The path of glorification is again the path of descent and the glorification of the Father. Elsewhere he insists: “I do not seek my own glory” (Jn 8:50). In his whole existence he seeks only the glory of the Father, in total identification of the execution of his mission. 

Von Balthasar highlights a threefold renunciation on Jesus’ part.

First, the renunciation of his own will: “I do not seek my own will but the will of the one who sent me.^u (Jn 5:30) and “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me (Jn 6:38). Second, the renunciation of the acting in his own power, “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing…” (5:19) and “when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me (8:28). Third, the renunciation of speaking and proclaiming on his own authority: “…I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak (12:49) 

Although the descent of Jesus is unique and incomparable, for as he says to Nicodemus, ‘No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man.” (Jn 3:13), we can prepare ourselves to be lifted up with him by imitating him in his humility, poverty and obedience. This attitude of Christ’s is foundational for a life of prayer. 

In the resurrection appearance and ascension narrative in Luke we can find more essential teachings on prayer. In Luke, the events of Easter are foreshortened so that today’s passage on the Lord’s ascension follows immediately upon his first appearance to the eleven gathered in Jerusalem. I would like to conclude with a focus on these passages. 

When the risen Christ first appeared to the eleven, he says “Peace to you”. Given that the eleven represent the Church, the first lesson is that the visit of Jesus has this ecclesial character, it happens in his body the Church. It also has this character of surprise, it could not have been anticipated, predicted or compelled. It is always a free gift.

Jesus comes to us with a word of peace- a word of forgiveness and reconciliation, which was the purpose of his coming. His peace, however, is not our peace. But his desire is to bring us into his peace. 

Our response, therefore, is inevitably that we are unsettled. 

Luke tells us that the initial response to the Lord’s coming was that the eleven were “startled and frightened” and to suppose that they had seen a spirit. 

When the Lord visits us in the events of our lives or through the Scriptures or personal prayer, we too can find ourselves “startled and frightened”, that is, whenever a long-accustomed way of seeing and interpreting reality has been unsettled, we seem to lose the ground under our feet, and we find we are unable to discern the Lord in it, or hear his word of peace. In these moments, he calls us to go deeper, to look, remain, wait, trust more, so that, as our guide, he may lead us through our incomprehension into a more penetrating grasp of his mystery. If we remain and are attentive, we will hear him speak a word of encouragement to our hearts such as the next words that he speaks to the eleven, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings arise in your hearts?”

As they come to see that it really is Jesus and not a spirit, Luke tells us in this wonderful phrase, they “disbelieved for joy and wondered”. The mystery of his presence still lies beyond what they are able to take in. They remain overwhelmed. Their faith is still in a process of being radically reconfigured, but they perceive enough that the confusion, sorrow, sense of loss and purpose, pain, anguish, loneliness and sense of abandonment are gone and an ecstatic joy and wonderment have taken their place. 

In this new space they have been made ready to see and hear him anew as he opens up the   scriptures to them, which brings us to the opening of today’s Gospel, “that the Messiah would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day” “and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem”.  But to be able to penetrate these mysteries more deeply along with the nature of their mission, they must wait in patience and prayer for the gift of the Spirit. 

Lastly, the comprehension of the eleven has grown to the point that when the Lord does depart definitively, we are told that they “They did him homage and then returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.

The Lord has laid down his life for us his friends so that we may life, a full life, through the gifts of the Spirit. As the Lord may visit us at any time and in any situation, whether accompanied by a powerful sense of his presence or at a depth that remains hidden to our conscious experience, so do the gifts of the Spirit. In whatever way he comes, he calls us to be ready and attentive, and, most of all, full of joy in the knowledge of what he has accomplished for our sake. For this disposition that is the most receptive to his gifts. For he has much that he wants to give us. So let us give thanks and never let go of this joy in our hearts as we resolve to use this time well.  

The Asceticism of Dying to Self

The aim of all ascetic effort is to make oneself nothing, after the example of Jesus Christ, described by St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians: "Divine nature was his from the first, but he did not think to snatch at equality with God; but made himself nothing, assuming the nature of a slave" (Ph. 2:6). This nothingness is the closest we can come to God. It is a dying to self so as to be fully open to God. Our selfishness is the obstacle to God's life and the action of his Spirit within us.

ANDRÉ LOUF The Cistercian Way

Homily — Sixth Sunday of Easter

The Trinity: A Burning Peace

Today we hear the Lord Jesus assure us yet again: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Such is the untiring promise of the risen Christ. He has to repeat it over and over again to us, his disciples, because we have thick skulls and embattled hearts, and it takes a while for such an enormous promise to penetrate our capacity to believe. The simple fact appears to be that, through his beloved Son, whose love has triumphed over death and therefore over all distress and sadness, God wants to make us partakers of the serene and undefeatable joy in which consists the Blessed Trinity’s eternal life. Let us not forget that the Paschal Mystery is not some far-off, impersonal, vaguely cosmic proposition! Christ became incarnate of the Virgin Mary and entered chaotic human history for us; Christ died on a bloody cross for us; Christ descended into hell and rose from the dead for us. If we pay attention we will see that there is nothing more intimately personal than these dynamic events, which therefore ought to concern us vitally. 

But will we have the capacity to receive Christ’s peace even as he extends it to us? Peace, by its nature, is not something that can be simply handed over like any material gift, a bouquet of flowers, say, or a blank check that passes from its giver’s ownership into ours. Lovely as the promise sounds, what does it actually mean, we may still ask, for the Lord Jesus to give us his peace? How is such a gift even possible? Lasting peace, shalom Adonai, the peace that only God can give, is probably the deepest desire of the human heart, and so this question is an urgent one indeed.

Even God cannot simply “transfer” either his peace or his love from his heart to ours. By their nature these divine gifts cannot be imposed or given in the manner of a transaction. They require that the person who receives them enter actively into a free, interpersonal relationship with their Giver. For this relationship is the gift! Christ’s peace and love are essential aspects of his Person, the intimate spiritual treasures of his own Being. We can come to enjoy them as our own only by allowing Christ to share them with us, and he can share them with us only by means of the astounding event that the gospel describes in this way: Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling within him. 

This tells us that the peace of Christ, the very peace Christ wants to give us, is inseparable from his own nature as eternal Son of the Father. As such, Christ’s peace cannot be conceived of apart from his love for and obedience to the Father. Christ’s own peace is an overflow, as it were, of his filial obedience to the Father, a fruition of his faithful and ceaseless love for the Father. We may say that the peace we speak of is like the very Breathing of the Persons of the Trinity, the atmosphere that sustains their eternally circulating love. Such peace is not a state of mere temporary placidity; it is a dynamic happening and can only exist within a relationship founded on the unending and reciprocal self-giving of Persons. In Augustinian language it may be called pax ardens, “a burning peace”, a unitive conflagration of love seeking to enkindle anyone it touches with the divine charity that generates it.

The Father exists only because he continually generates the Son, and the Son exists only because he receives his being continually from the Father, and the Holy Spirit exists only as the vibrant relationship of love between them. In other words, deep, life-giving peace can only be the fruit of the surrender of self, even within the Trinity, and never the result of the imposition of one’s own will in order to manipulate others through the acquisition of power. That would be the dreadful peace of a cemetery! The power of love is always other-oriented, always intent on the good of the other, always desirous to contribute one’s own substance in order that the beloved may flourish. 

In the Blessed Trinity there are three Lovers who are simultaneously also three Beloveds, and as such the Trinity is the grounding principle of all human community. Genuine peace can only flow from infinitely faithful love. By making us the promise of his peace, Jesus is in fact saying that he ardently desires to share his divine Trinitarian life with us, his disciples. This is why he says: If you love me you will keep my word, and my Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our dwelling within you. Jesus knows that the human heart withers if it lacks lasting love and peace. He also knows that we, radically limited creatures that we are, could not ever possibly discover on our own the Sphere of Everlasting Joy that is the life of God. Therefore, he must bring down that Blessed Sphere to us, saying: My Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our dwelling within you. 

Christ’s love for us transforms us from cowering and whimpering creatures into the dwelling places of the Blessed Trinity, exquisite abodes of love where the fullness of divine Life can exist and thrive. To define the magnificent event of this divine indwelling within us we have not only the very intimate language of the Gospel of John but also the rather outlandish, visionary language of the Book of Revelation, where we just heard this: The angel … showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It gleamed with the splendor of God. This exterior, ecclesial language complements the intimate, personal language of the divine indwelling, and together the two modes attempt to describe one single reality: that God takes delight in making his dwelling among us and with us in order to share with us all the treasures of his own immortal life and peace. In both cases we have a rather shocking affirmation that subverts all of our neat categories: the Higher rejoices in coming to the lower, the Greater to the lesser, the Eternal to the mortal, and not for a while only but with a finality that faithfully corresponds to the abiding permanence of true love. This is a love that delights in filling with light, joy and everlasting peace a void where previously there had been only doubt, darkness and distress.

Yet notice the opening of the extravagant promise of divine indwelling made to us: If you love me you will keep my word… The fulfillment of Christ’s promise crucially depends, not only on divine fidelity but also on us, as chosen hosts of Trinitarian presence and life. It depends on our hearing and keeping “the word”—that is, the teachings—of Jesus in fidelity to his person. Only by receiving and internalizing the Word of the Savior can we come into possession of the divine Life. Only the power of our response in the form of a generous and active faith can throw wide open the doors and windows of our soul to welcome Jesus, his Father and their Spirit as our Guests and constant source of life. I repeat: embracing and fostering the growth of Jesus’ word within our hearts is the habitual spiritual action that continually says yes, yes, yes, to welcome the divine indwelling within us. 

Now, what it means “to keep Jesus’ word”, as we well know, has been summed up by Jesus himself magisterially in the one all-containing commandment: Love one another as I have loved you. God will not violently knock down our locked doors, or demolish our resistance to obeying this commandment. This opening can only occur through our freedom responding to grace. The only condition to being nourished by him is that we open wide our mouths: he will not pry them open by force; and we cannot receive his love without giving his love to others, which is the proof of actually having received it. These are the various inseparable elements of the one act of divine love. If the almighty and eternal God could not keep his love for himself, how could we dare attempt to restrict it to ourselves? Such is the essential foundation of genuine Christian living, and not any kind of circumcision or uncircumcision, dogmatism, kosher laws or partisan ideological allegiances. 

When we receive the Body and Blood of Christ, we welcome into our persons and our lives far more than only the risen Christ. Christ can never be isolated from the total mystery of the Blessed Trinity, can never be degraded as our personal commodity. Where Christ is, there necessarily are also the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory and Majesty of God. Along with the whole person of the Lord Jesus—body, soul, humanity and divinity—in this Eucharist we receive as well his Father and their Spirit, along with the eternal Life that is the essence of Their triune relationship. 

The Divine Indwelling within us is no mere edifying metaphor, the elusive product of dreamy wishful thinking. The energetic life of the Blessed Trinity within us is as real, concrete and momentous as the holy, sanctified Food we are about to receive from this altar, and as fraught with ethical consequences. We cannot receive Holy Communion and remain indifferent to the starving children of Gaza. We do not receive the Presence of God into ourselves with impunity! This Trinitarian Presence is the condition that alone can make the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, the precious and costly peace to which we are being called in one body (cf Col 3:15). 

Being Ourselves

The fruit of humility is… naturalness. Being at home with ourselves. Being ourselves. Grace extroverts itself. It begins suddenly in the depths of our spirits but in the course of a lifetime evangelizes all levels of our being until it becomes outward, visible, communicable. It can never reach that point if we are in the habit of hiding behind a façade so that our true self is always concealed.

MICHAEL CASEY A Guide to Living in the Truth: St. Benedict’s Teaching on Humility 

Submission to God’s Will

Make a particular effort to practice sweetness and submission to the will of God, not only in extraordinary matters, but even in the little things that occur daily. Make these acts not only in the morning, but also during the day and in the evening, with a tranquil and joyful spirit. And if you should fail in this, humble yourself, make a new proposition, get up and continue on your way.

PADRE PIO