Here's looking at you

"Come, and you will see."

John 1:39

Sunday, January 15, 2012
2^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time—B

1Samuel 3:3b-10, 19
1Corinthians 6:13c-15a, 17-20
John 1:35-42

There is a lot of looking going on in today’s Gospel reading.

John watched Jesus walk by.

Behold, the Lamb of God, John says.

Jesus turned and saw John’s disciples following him.

What are looking for? Jesus asks.

Come, and you will see, Jesus says when they ask where he’s staying.

They went and saw where Jesus was staying.

Finally, when Andrew brings along his brother Simon, Jesus looked at him before identifying him and then giving him the new name Peter.

God knows precisely who we are. He knows us better than we know ourselves. His gaze on us is never diverted elsewhere, and it is not a gaze of harsh condemnation but one of tender compassion and love, for “I am meek and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29). God looks at us, loves us (cf. Mark 10:21), and invites us to follow him. There is no coercion involved. “Come, and you will see,” he says, almost playfully.

If we are truly looking for him, listening for him—in prayer, Scripture, the life of the Church, our relationships, our work, our everyday encounters, sorrows and joys, successes and failures, illness and health—we will find the Messiah as Andrew and Peter did. Even when we are not looking or listening, Jesus walks by, turns and sees us, and continually invites us: “Come, and you will see.” He knows us, comes to meet us where we are, and then beckons us to follow him to where he is, to whom we belong, to become who we are called to be.

A sense of divine familiarity pervades all today’s readings. Samuel “was not familiar with the Lord,” yet God called out to him as he slept, waiting patiently for him to respond, “Speak, Lord for your servant is listening.” Though Samuel up to that point knew nothing of the Lord, God knew him through and through. In the second reading, St Paul reminds us that our bodies are members of Christ, that we are joined to the Lord and are one Spirit with him. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit,” he says. “You are not your own.”

We belong to God, who is intimately familiar with us.

That is a message today’s world needs to hear, to believe, to live. Each of us in our own way molds an image of who we think we are, who others think we are, and we struggle daily to live up to those false idols. God calls us gently away from our own ideas and notions. In revealing himself to us, he shows each and every one of us who we really are, who we are meant to be, who we can become. Like with Simon Peter, God calls us to follow him, to glorify God in our bodies, and take on a new identity in Christ while still remaining ourselves.

Peter did not change instantly. Under the gaze of God, he remained a deeply flawed man. But he had discovered Christ, and his potential self in Christ, and he was willing to follow him. He was on the way. So it is with each one of us.

Jesus sees you, knows you.

“What are you looking for?” he asks.

"Come, and you will see who you will become through me."

Steadfast love

The Lord is strength, my rock,
my fortress, my savior.

Psalm 18:2-3

Even though everything turns and changes around us, we must always remain unchanging and ever looking, striving, and aspiring toward God.

No matter what course the ship may take, no matter whether it sails to the east, west, north, or south, no matter what wind drives it on, the mariner's needle never points in any direction except toward the fair polar star.

Everything may be in confusion not only around us, I say, but within us as well. Our soul may be overwhelmed with sorrow or joy, with sweetness or bitterness, with peace or trouble, with light or darkness, with temptation or repose, with pleasure or disgust, with aridity or tenderness. It may be scorched by the sun or refreshed by the dew.

For all that, ever and always our heart's point, our spirit, our higher will, which is our compass, must unceasingly look and tend toward the love of God, its Creator, its Savior, its sole and sovereign good.

-- St. Francis de Sales

Introduction to the Devout Life

X

You, O Lord, are my lamp
my God who lightens my darkness.

Psalm 18:29

Bathed in light

"You are my beloved son;
with you I am well pleased."

Mark 1:11

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him.

Jesus comes to bury sinful humanity in the waters. He comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us; he who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead. A voice bears witness to him from heaven, his place of origin. The Spirit descends in bodily form like the dove that so long ago announced the ending of the flood and so gives honor to the body that is one with God.

Today let us do honor to Christ's baptism and celebrate his feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of humanity, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all mankind, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven.

-- St. Gregory of Nazianzus

Raise your eyes and look about

They were overjoyed at seeing the star.

Matthew 2:10

Sunday, January 8, 2012
Solemnity of the Epiphany

Isaiah 60:1-6
Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6
Matthew 2:1-12

“Raise your eyes and look about,” Isaiah tells us in today’s first reading. “Your light has come. Upon you the Lord shines.” We must keep our gaze on heaven above but also “look about,” to the circumstances and people on earth through whom the light of Christ shines. He is in each of us, all around us, yet we must first raise our eyes, viewing everything from an eternal perspective that reveals God’s immense love, mercy, and compassion.

Elsewhere, St. Paul tells us, “If you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth” (Colossians 3:1-2). As baptized Christians, we are raised with Christ in his baptism (which we celebrate Monday), on his cross, and in his resurrection. Raised with Christ in this light, God’s glory shines upon us, and as Isaiah says, we then become radiant at what we see, and our hearts will throb and overflow.

This is illustrated for us in today’s Gospel story of the Magi. In Jerusalem, very near the town of Bethlehem where Christ is born, King Herod looks all about, but not above, and therefore is “greatly troubled.” The light of Christ is close by, but he cannot see it. On the other hand, the three Magi from a distant land have their eyes uplifted to see Christ’s star at its rising. So, they are impelled to look about for him, guided by the light above. They knew who they were looking for, and in a spirit of humility, gratitude, and joy, they found him and gave themselves to him by presenting their treasures.

The Magi’s encounter—God revealed to foreigners in a strange land through the newborn Christ—made them stewards of God’s grace and co-partners in God’s promise of eternal salvation revealed through the gospel. Herod, though a native of the land, remained troubled. Fearfully looking all about but without raising his eyes to heaven, he attempts to kill all the newborn children in Bethlehem to preserve his own treasures. In doing so, he remains in the dark, unable to see the light so visible to the Magi from so far away—and eventually loses everything.

As we reflect on the mystery of the Epiphany—God’s manifestation to all peoples through Christ’s birth, his visit from the Magi, his baptism, and his first miracle of changing water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana—we do well to ask ourselves these questions:

n      Are we greatly troubled?

n      Have we first raised our eyes to heaven?

n      Do we then look about the earth for the light of Christ with humility, gratitude and joy, eager to find him in the most unlikely of people and places, and offer there our greatest treasures?

May our encounter with Christ make us radiant at what we see, our hearts throbbing and overflowing with the gift of God’s grace manifested to all the earth. Let us raise our eyes and then look about. Then this light, this life, will be ours forever, and likewise will be offered to all around us who are greatly troubled. May we all become co-partners in God's promise of eternal salvation revealed through the gospel.

“Your light has come. Upon you the Lord shines.”

Living in gratitude

"Do not grumble or speak ill of others.
Place your hope in God alone."
Rule of St. Benedict, Ch. 4:39-41

Living in gratitude is not so easy. We don't always feel grateful or blessed, and we often complain. However Scripture (cf. 1Peter 5:6-7; Colossians 3:16-17) calls us to strive for the ideal of a grateful heart and trust in God.

St. Benedict's Rule exemplifies this ideal for us. He exhorts his followers to live in gratitude, and to refrain from grumbling. In his Rule, Benedict uses the Latin term for "murmuring" -- what we would call grumbling. He is adamant that grumbling is not to be tolerated, not only because it indicates a lack of gratitude and trust within the individual monk's heart, but because it can be so damaging to those around us.

At its root, chronic grumbling is a lack of faith in God's provident care; it is prideful frustration that seeps into our hearts when things don't go our way or we don't get what we want. It is a refusal to bow under the mighty hand of God, trusting that everything will work out, and that things are often better than acknowledged. St. Benedict urges us to live in gratitude each moment, if for nothing else than for the simple facts that we are God's children, created and chosen, redeemed by Christ, and promised eternal life.

If we truly consider those essentials, nothing else matters, and we can live in gratitude all our days.

Br. Francis

Living in Gratitude: Reflecting on Benedict's Caution Against Grumbling

Notes from a Monastery series

Iesus hominum salvator

"At the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,

of those in heaven
and on earth
and under the earth,
and every tongue confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of
God the Father."

Philippians 2:10-11

Theotokos

"The Word became flesh.

Woman, behold, your son.
[Disciple] behold, your mother."

John 1:14; 19:26-27 

Sunday, January 1, 2012
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God

Numbers 6:22-27
Galatians 4:4-7
Luke 2:16-21

NOTE: Today’s reflection is by one of the Greek fathers,

St. John Damascene (c. 674-749):

We proclaim the holy Virgin to be in strict truth the Mother of God. For inasmuch as he who was born of her was true God, she who bore the true God incarnate is the true Mother of God. For we hold that God was born of her, not implying that the divinity of the Word received from her the beginning of its being, but meaning that God the Word himself, who was begotten of the Father timelessly before the ages, and was with the Father and the Spirit without beginning through eternity, took up his abode in these last days for the sake of our salvation in the Virgin’s womb, and was without change made flesh and born of her.

For the holy Virgin did not give birth to mere man but to true God: and not only God but God incarnate, who did not bring down his body from heaven, nor simply passed through the Virgin as a channel, but received flesh from her, of like essence to our own and subsisting in himself.

For if the body had come down from heaven and had not partaken of our nature, what would have been the use of his becoming man? For the purpose of God the Word becoming man was that the very same nature, which had sinned and fallen and become corrupted, should triumph over the deceiving tyrant and so be freed from corruption.

"God became man
so that man might become god."

St. Athanasius