On Becoming

Perhaps when a person goes to the trouble (mostly time) of becoming a Christian and/or Catholic, it is because one wants in some way to become a better person.

I guess it probably was my motivation, but of course, i didn't think of it that way. Jesus' teachings are often hard and they go against the grain--forgive 70 x 7? We try a bit, fall back into old patterns, and shrug, reminding ourselves that God forgives and will forgive us our failings, even if they are serial in nature.

So we struggle, and if you are even a little like me, you fail a lot more than you succeed. I homily takes you for a couple of hours and then you're back at haranguing the kids or dogs. 

But I have been seduced as it were, into a new way of "becoming a better person", one not dependant upon my own perceptions so much. Insidiously, (for God has certainly acted in an underhanded and deft way with me), I have been led to a particular priest and a particular parish.

I returned to a parish i had already left some years before for a variety of reasons of no real importance now. I was attending another parish, and this priest  (my saint), arrived to beg a bit of money for the poor parish. I was entranced almost from the start of his homily.

His words and his passion were like nothing I had seen in Las Cruces. I had experienced a few really wonderful priests in my time, but few were captivating from the pulpit as it were. I had been led to expect nothing much more, having been "raised" so to speak by nuns whose opinion of priests can be less than stellar. 

"They come and go," the good and the not so good, I was told. 

So, a priest had NEVER been on my list of "must haves" to entice me to a parish. I expected little and was not disturbed when i got little. 

Then along comes my saint. He captivated me with his style,his passion and his clear intelligence. Within a few weeks, I was ignoring the "can't attend there, the mass is at 11 in the morning and I'm a early morning mass goer", and planning to attend. 

I did, and I returned, and returned and returned. Finally for the fourth time or so, i registered. Then i went to confession.  I won't disclose that experience, but just say it was gentle and kind and helpful. I began almost immediately to see what the real point of confession was--real deep heartfelt regret over wrongdoing--not just choosing from the roster of "sins" to put into a rotating file to be used again and again.

And I ran into my saint the following morning before mass and he hugged me, and asked about m husband. HE REMEMBERED ME. 

That meant so very much. I was seen, I was heard, I was really a part of this community. 

At first his 30-minute + homilies were interesting but too long. Now, a few months later, I never even think of the time, so engrossed do i become in the enthusiasm and passion he exudes each Sunday. 

And when i ponder whether to do "the right thing" or the easy thing, it's his face that comes to mind and how he would feel about it. Not as my saint, I must say, but AS THE PRESENT FACE OF CHRIST BEFORE ME. He has and is my Christ in the flesh, and I want to be the good person he believes I can be. 

So I find myself truly trying to be a better person because God's servant has done his job well. Can I be such to another? I doubt it, but I know now that I will try, because my saint is always before me and I know that Jesus lives vibrantly within him. 

Reflection on Luke 16:19-31

It is always the last sentence in the periscope that catches me unawares:

  "if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuade if someone should rise from the dead."

It reminds me of many years ago when I was deeply embedded in science fiction. I got a whole box of sci-fi books from a guy I was dating, and one has remained with me always as to this very issue.

You see, the book was an anthology of stories written on the basic premise that Jesus had returned and how that might play out. What of course became significant, is that for one reason or another, plenty of people, most in fact, found reason to distrust the "obvious" proofs of Jesus' return, preferring to believe in media manipulation, sleight of hand, and other parlor tricks to "explain" the so-called Messiah.

I never forgot the book, though the individual stories were less memorable. When, years later I sought the book, I realized I had sold it with hundreds of others. I looked for it online at various old book stores across the country, but it was impossible with neither a title nor anthology "author".

So, in some sense, Luke is prescient of this fact more than two thousand years ago. Perhaps he assumed that human nature would not change much over time. I guess he is right.

My priest suggests that Lazarus's are around us all the time, in our families, in our neighbors, in our friends and of course in the faces of all those others in the world. We must seek them, and help them, lest we end up as the rich man who went to Hell and was reminded that he lived well in life and now comes the payment. We do not wish to suffer this fate.

Wealth was not the reason Father intoned, rather it was his indifference to the needs of others that did the rich man in. I always note that even now, as the rich man begs for mercy, his method involves treating Lazarus as the "servant" he still thinks of him as. He tells Abraham to "send Lazarus", as if he still has the right to command the actions of others. He has learned, sadly, nothing.

It is not the money, but what we choose to do with it. The parable does not suggest that we are doomed if we have wealth, nor that we must use most or all of it for the benefit of others. But it does suggest that we better be aware of those around us, and to not neglect the poor and needy as we go about our day. We must seek and realize the Lazarus's among us and reach out with compassion each and every time we encounter them.

It does not mean that we must every time give of our earthly means, but that we must recognize our brothers and sisters and acknowledge their equality, and dignity. We must honor them as we would the most benign and lovable queen. We must share as they require of us to do, for this brings forth the true paradox.

We see in the poor, the face of Christ as he instructed us in Matthew 25, while paradoxically we act as the hands,  and feet of Christ in the ministering to his children. We in fact in doing for the others, do it for ourselves.

The Beginning

There are no limits to new beginnings I don't think. One can feel a "new beginning" most powerfully, with joy, or with dread and foreboding. But usually we think of new beginnings as a new start, an opportunity to move in a new direction, to do "it" differently, to not make old mistakes.

It is said that God's grace to us is most perfect in the fact that each day we can get up and try again. Indeed, we can fail miserably day after day at the same task, yet at the dawn, feel the grace of a new page, a clean slate is proffered.

For many, such a thought is undoubtedly the main factor in having the strength to get up and do it all again. The endless cooking, cleaning, filing, typing, driving, writing, washing , raking, carrying, shopping, organizing of it all, doing it again and again for no seeming reason at all, for in the end what does your clean house mean? Yet somehow, the drive of the human psyche to continue no matter how difficult, no matter how painful, boring, useless it all seems, the drive pushes us forward. Why? In truth, because what is there else to do? We can lay in a puddle and die, but what is the point of that either?

God it seems to me, fills the void in a way that gives meaning and sense to life. We struggle for a reason, we put up with insult, and injury, hatred, betrayal, broken promises, lies, innuendo, all the vagaries of human social interaction because God is there, always pulling for us, always offering help, always (we hope and pray), clearing the way making our way just a bit more even, than it would otherwise be. We take solace in that.

As we struggle through the evil that permeates the very marrow of our government, we must trust in something. We trust in God's ever working for good out of the chaos of the present. We trust because we would dissolve into screaming masses of flesh otherwise. Some of us believe in the pie-in-the-sky plans that mean God produces lots of pain and misery on the way to paradise.  Others of us, me at least, believe in a God who is a persuader rather than a commander. For indeed, if God cannot persuade who could? And if God can demand and command, then what is free will?

I begin again to record my thinking about faith, about scripture, about priests and church, pope and cardinal, monk and nun. We shall see what proves fruitful or nay.