A Provident God

Giving Thanks (c. 1905) by Harry Roseland

Thanksgiving is a holiday all about traditions: from recalling the circumstances of that fabled first Thanksgiving in the Plymouth colony four centuries ago, to the particular traditions established by our own families. There is one tradition though that many families seem to share: the one where each family member must recount what he or she is thankful for. Often, this tradition – at least as it is depicted in the movies – happens right at the beginning of Thanksgiving dinner, after everyone has sat down but before anyone is allowed to start eating. As each member takes his or her turn recounting the things for which they are grateful, the list grows longer and longer, and inevitably someone complains, “Hurry up already, I’m hungry!”

Taking time to be grateful is an important tradition, not just at Thanksgiving but at all times. In fact, for the Christian, gratitude is more than a tradition – it is an obligation, a part of the general spirit of worship and praise that we are called to have for God at all times. The fact that you are here at Mass this morning – on a day when the university is closed, on a day that is not a holy day of obligation – means that you probably know this very well. There is no better means by which we can show our gratitude to God than to participate in this liturgy, this Eukharistia (Greek for “Thanksgiving”), the Church’s sublime act of worship offered to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.

As we age, our gratitude grows and deepens as well. A child might be grateful for food on the table, the chance to visit with friends and relatives, perhaps the toys he or she is already looking forward to receiving at Christmas. An adult’s gratitude goes a little deeper: for family harmony, for the opportunity to work and provide for others, for experiences with and memories of loved ones no longer present. In time, of course, we come to realize that everything we have, however fleeting, is a blessing and so gratitude should be at heart of our very being. It is, in many ways, the foundation of an authentic relationship with God.

That’s not to say that gratitude is always easy. At times, it can be difficult to give thanks: there are blessings that come in unexpected or seemingly untimely ways; other blessings are difficult to receive or to know how to utilize; and perhaps most especially there are events and occurrences in life that don’t appear to be blessings at all. When we are in the midst of trial, disappointment, loss, want, or any other kind of suffering, to give thanks may be the very last thing our soul wants to do – but even then, we have an obligation to praise God, and to thank him. If nothing else, there is always at least the blessing of being invited to share in the sufferings of Christ and to be freed of our attachments to the present reality so that we might long more deeply for the eternal one to come.

In the second reading today, we heard St. Paul tell the Corinthians that they have received “the grace of God bestowed… in Christ Jesus,” such that they “are not lacking in any spiritual gift” but “enriched in every way.” Those words do not mean that all was joy and laughter for the Corinthians; in fact, from what we hear about that community in Paul’s letters, it was more of the opposite. But as Paul tells them, even sorrows and trials can become blessings for those who see with the eyes of faith. We are servants of a provident God, not an inscrutable one. In Christ, especially in his Resurrection, we have already been shown a glimpse of how God has arranged all things in the end unto our ultimate good. In the meantime, we call upon the Holy Spirit to help us believe "how all things work together unto good" for those who love God (Rom 8:28).

Friends, on this Thanksgiving Day, let us seek to be grateful not merely for the individual blessings that may come easily to mind today, but for everything, for the entirety of our relationship with God, including, even especially for the most difficult blessings. In the end, it is all sheer gift: our creation, our redemption, our sanctification – the very fact that you and I are here in this place, right this moment, participating in this Mass, this Eukharistia, this sacramental Thanksgiving. The greatest blessing God gives to us is that of he himself – our ability to know him, to praise him, to be in communion with him, so that in all things we may have faith in him, believing that even in sufferings and sorrows, there is a grace that he wishes to give to us. May a spirit of gratitude be renewed within us so that we may never fail at all times, in all seasons, to give praise and thanks to God.

What Will Last

A few months ago, I took a little vacation time. Nature has always been one of the primary ways that I feel a sense of God’s presence, and so I decided to head out west to visit a few national parks that had long been on my wish list. I always find that I gain a little perspective when I spend some time out among the ancient things of nature – the mountains, the desert, the wide-open sky. Our lives are full of so many changing realities; there is a sense of comfort and stability that comes from being in the midst of things that have been around for eons. 

However, that perception – of permanence, stability – is really an illusion. Any geologist can tell you that the earth is constantly changing, shaped by both tectonic forces below and the elements above. Any astronomer can tell you that the stars in the night sky have lifespans, much longer than our own but nonetheless finite. The natural things of the world around us may seem permanent, but they are anything but. All that we see around us is ultimately transitory, created things which are passing away.

Our readings for this Sunday remind us of this fact if we had forgotten it. In this 33rd week of Ordinary Time, the second to last week of our liturgical year, our lectionary has taken an apocalyptic turn. The prophet Daniel speaks about a time of great trial and distress which ends with the resurrection of those who are dead, some to eternal life and some to “everlasting horror and disgrace.” In the Letter to the Hebrews, we hear how all things have been made subject to Jesus the High Priest, who at the right hand of God is bringing all of his enemies under his rule. Finally, in the Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples not to be caught off guard by the suddenness of what will happen – the Son of Man returning in glory to judge all things.

Gustave Doré, The Triumph of Christianity Over Paganism [detail] (c. 1868)

The passage we hear from the Gospel of Mark is actually the end of a longer passage in which Jesus describes how the end times will be marked by the dissolution of many of the things that seem to give order and structure to this reality: nations will rise up against up each other, kingdoms will fall, families will be split apart, even the earth itself will quake and become barren. Rather than describe particular occurrences that we can track as predictions, the point that Jesus is making is how everything that seems stable and permanent will be overturned. No doubt this is frightening, both for us and for Jesus’s listeners. What exactly are we to make of this dire prophecy? Where is the “Good News”?

Believe it or not, these readings are fundamentally readings about hope. At the end of the liturgical year – and then, immediately following, in the first few weeks of Advent – our readings are apocalyptic, not because the Church wants to frighten us but because it wants to remind us of what ultimately will last. We tend to think of that word, “apocalypse,” as the catastrophic end of all things. But that’s not really what the word means in Greek. “Apocalypse” is not mass destruction but rather is closer to our word “revelation.” It denotes a disclosure, a tearing away of the veil so that what truly is can be fully seen. For the Christian mindset, the Apocalypse is not the end of all things the fulfillment of all things – the true revealing of what actually and permanently is.

And what is it, in the end, that is the most fundamental reality? If nations and kingdoms will pass away, if families and relationships are to be upset and disrupted, if even the earth and sea and sky are going to pass away, what ultimately will last? Jesus says it plainly – the Son of Man, that is, he himself. In the Gospels, Jesus refers to himself as “the Son of Man” whenever he intends to describe his role as the One sent by God as our Savior and Redeemer, the One who must suffer and be rejected, even to the point of death, but who in rising again will be given all power and authority in heaven and on earth. In the end, all of the other aspects of creation will be overturned, not for the sake of destruction but for the sake of revealing that in the end Christ alone will remain.

As I said, that is a message of hope. Why? Because we know intuitively that this world and this life are not permanent; at times, we are reminded of that fact in very sudden, very painful ways. Many of you know that this past week we suffered a loss here in our own parish community. One of our students, Connor Kordsmeier, who was active and among us just a week ago, passed away after a sudden illness. That sense of loss – and especially that sense of disruption, of being reminded so violently of the impermanence of this reality – can be really disorienting. It can shake our faith. What we need in these moments is the virtue of hope. Faith is the belief in things that we cannot yet see, but hope is the certain expectation of receiving those things that we believe in.

Whenever we suffer loss – whether it is the passing of a family or a friend, or something lesser, like a disappointment, a trial, a grievance, an expectation unfulfilled – we are reminded that this reality is not permanent, not lasting, but rather is the anticipation of a new reality that will one day be completely revealed. And at the center of that reality is Jesus, the only One who truly lasts, the only One who fulfills our desire for stability and permanence. When we renew our hope in the Son of Man – the One who has been given all power and authority, the One who will come again in glory – then we can bear with perseverance all of the sorrows and disappointments of this world, all of the disruptions and instabilities of this life, because we remember that nothing in the end will last that is not a part of Christ.

Let me give you just three quick ways that we can learn to place our hope in Christ, not in the world, on a daily basis. 

• First, begin each day with a short prayer, offering to God everything that may happen to you that day – all of your experiences, all of the things you will do, all of your joys and all of your sorrows. When we do this, even the seemingly routine, mundane parts of our daily lives become something imbued with spiritual meaning.

• Second, make sure you are regularly receiving the sacrament of confession. We are all sinners, but the key to growing in our spiritual life is not to rely upon our efforts to become better but to turn to the sacrament of God’s mercy and healing, whenever we may need it.

• Third, try to keep in mind your own death every day. That may sound morbid, but for the Christian it shouldn’t be. Death, after all, is meeting God, and if we are living the way we should be, that should be a joy and not something to fear. St. Francis of Assisi once said, “Every action of yours, every thought, should be those of one who expects to die before the day is out. Death would have no great terrors for you if you had a quiet conscience… Then why not keep clear of sin instead of running away from death? If you aren’t fit to face death today, it’s very unlikely you will be tomorrow…” 

St. Francis of Assisi in His Tomb by Francisco de Zurbarán (c. 1634)

Friends, in these days, there are a lot of reminders of our own impermanence, from the passing of a member of our community to the fading of the natural world around us. We can let such reminders become a cause for fear or disturbance, or we can see them as an opportunity to place our trust in the only One who will truly last. Jesus, the Son of Man, will return for each of us, either in glory at the end of time, or when we see him face to face at the close of our lives. Let us strive anew to find comfort and stability and hope in him, not in the changing things of this passing world. As we prepare to encounter him in this Eucharist once again, may its graces help us to strive to be ready at all times to encounter him face to face, so that when we do it is not with fear, but with faith, expectation, and joy.

Strange Accounting

When I was growing up, my uncle helped teach me the value of money. He would put a coin in the palm of his hand so that when I reached out to shake it, I would find myself a few cents richer. Sometimes it was a couple dimes, sometimes a quarter. I soon began to learn the denominations of currency – a quarter is worth more than a dime, a dime more than a nickel, etc. Nowadays I myself am an uncle, but it’s a different era, and I’m not sure this same game would work with my nephew. He’s more likely to play with a credit card than with coins. 

Learning the value of money is an important life skill for all of us. Some lessons we learn at a young age: a whole stack of green bills with the face of George Washington are worth less than a single green bill with the face of Benjamin Franklin. Other lessons require more maturity: a compound interest rate is much different than a simple interest rate. Good teachers, and good examples, go a long way in helping us understand the things of this world.

Though he owned little to nothing himself, Jesus clearly understood the importance of money. He talks about it a lot in the Gospels; but he does so often in surprising ways. There’s the parable of the generous landowner, for example, who pays those who had worked for only an hour in his vineyard the same full daily wage as those who had labored all day. That’s kind of strange. In another place, he says that for the one who has, more will be given, and that the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Again, that doesn’t make a lot of sense according to our thinking about money.

Today’s Gospel provides another example of Jesus’s strange way of accounting. He and his disciples observe the poor widow at the treasury who puts in two coins worth a few cents. And yet, he says that she has contributed more than anyone else. What? This seems demonstrably false. The scribes have contributed much larger sums, certainly amounts larger than a few cents. How could one possibly say that the widow has contributed more than the rest? 

Of course, we know what Jesus is referring to – there is a kind of accounting that is much more important than mere dollars and cents. For example, one can be generous in two ways. The first is by giving a lot because one has a lot. A philanthropist may make a generous donation to a foundation or a university; but the value of his gift, while a lot in terms of dollars and cents, is tempered in the measure of generosity, since it is one he can well afford. Compare that kind of giving to that of a family of modest means who helps another family to pay its medical expenses, or who sponsors a child to go to Catholic school, or who contributes to the annual church campaign. True generosity is to give more than what one can – or, put another way, to give even when one cannot really afford to do so.

Jesus’s example of the poor widow in the Gospel is intended to remind us that God sees the value of our giving not so much in terms of dollars and cents, but according to what we have been given. As we heard a few weeks ago, riches can be an impediment to the kingdom of God: it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. We all should learn the value of money – but not as an end in itself but rather as a means to provide for those for whom we are responsible, including the poor and needy. The truly generous person remembers that every gift has its origin in God, and so our gifts are not truly our own, but only entrusted to us to be used for his purposes. 

The Widow's Mite (1890) by William Teulon Blandford Fletcher

Today’s Gospel clearly has implications for how we view money and possessions, but we might consider what else it can teach us about how we “spend” things that we “possess”. If the widow’s coins might be thought of not as currency, but as grace – if we think in terms of a generosity of spirit, rather than of purse – what might we learn?

Think about all of the spiritual things we know that our world needs more of – indeed, that we ourselves need more of: humility, patience, forgiveness, honesty, empathy, charity of spirit, love. We tend to operate as if we can give or show these spiritual gifts to others only when we have them in abundance ourselves. But remember that, in Jesus’s way of accounting, true generosity is to give even when we do not have much to give – to give not from abundance but from our own poverty. The Temple scribes gave because they wanted honor from others; they sought to use their resources to win favor, both of God and of other people. But spiritual gifts are like material ones: they have their origin in God, not in us. The widow in the Gospel trusted that God would provide for what she did not have.

What if we did the same? What if we sought to be patient even when we are running low on patience, or if we sought to express concern and consolation to another even we are feeling anxious ourselves? What if we sought to be empathetic even when we find ourselves feeling critical, or to forgive even if we don’t feel very forgiving? What if we sought to embrace Jesus’s strange way of accounting – believing that God rewards those who give from their own poverty, and that he cannot be outdone in generosity?

Friends, we each need good teachers and good examples of how to regard the things of this world. But we need the same for the qualities of the spirit as well, and we can be those teachers, those examples to a world so clearly in need of spiritual gifts. Jesus reminds us today that the most important thing we possess is our identity in him and the grace we have received from being in relationship with him. God’s way of accounting may seem strange to us, but that is because it is rooted in his goodness and in his compassion – he can give us the power to show generosity if we first recognize how he has been generous to us. May the Eucharist we will receive today prompt us to rely upon him and to seek always to be giving, like the widow in the Gospel, especially when we feel we have little to give. Whether it is material resources, or those spiritual gifts that we have been given, it is from God that we have received, and from him that we will receive again.

Rules of the Road

Rules are a necessary part of life. As much as we may not like the idea of them, we all know implicitly that we need them. I realized this in a very concrete way when I visited South America about a decade ago. Immediately after getting off the plane, our group hopped in a taxi to get to our hotel. What followed was nothing short of a near-death experience. I quickly came to appreciate how many laws about driving we have here in the U.S., since I saw what it looked like – and what it felt like – to not have them at all. 

In the Gospel today, a scribe asks Jesus about his understanding of rules. He’s not interested in transportation though but in the rules that govern our relationship with God – what we call commandments. In the Jewish religion, there were 613 commandments – 365 commandments to not do something and 248 commandments to do something. With so many rules, it was a matter of discussion and debate about which were the most important. The scribe comes to Jesus to ask him how he sees things.

The scribe comes to Jesus because he understands him to be a teacher, perhaps a prophet, certainly someone that others followed and respected. But our Gospel writer St. Mark also wants us to see Jesus as someone greater than these human attributes. He wants us to understand Jesus as the one whom Mark has been slowly revealing him to be throughout his Gospel: namely, the Messiah of the Jewish people and, even more, God-in-the-Flesh. As we wait for Jesus to respond then, we understand that his response will not just be the opinion of another human being; we are about to hear God himself tell us what he values as the most important rule governing our relationship with him. Jesus is not just describing the commandment, he is the One who pronouncing it to us anew.

So, what does Jesus say? On the one hand, what he says is perfectly expected: “you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” This prayer is called the Shema, from the Book of Deuteronomy and which we heard in our first reading. It is at the very heart of the Jewish faith. As a good Jew, Jesus would have recited it every morning and every evening. It’s also the prayer that some Jews place on small scrolls outside the doorposts of their homes or even wear in bands on their heads and arms. For Jesus to be asked “What is the first commandment?” and to respond with the Shema is not in the least surprising.

What is surprising is that he quickly adds a second commandment. “To love your neighbor as yourself” is a commandment that comes from the Book of Leviticus, but in no way was it considered to be on the same level as the commandment to love God with your whole being. Jesus is at the same time affirming the core principle of the Jewish faith, while also updating it, intensifying it, re-contextualizing it in light of all that he has come to reveal. He shows that the love of God and love of neighbor are inextricably linked together, and that if we try to do one without the other, we will fail at both. If we try to love God without loving other people, we risk becoming fanatical and closed off from the needs of people in the real world around us. If we love other people without loving God, our love will devolve into relativistic sentiment, unable to truly know what is for another person’s good since we’ve lost sight of the Source of all good. It turns out that in order to do either one, we have to do both – to love God with our whole being, and love our neighbor as ourselves.

These two loves can seem very abstract, but believe it or not, each time we come to Mass, we have the opportunity to put into practice exactly those two things. The Mass, at its heart, is not about being uplifted in spirit, or hearing an informative or inspiring homily. Those things are good, but they are secondary to the act of worship that we make to God – as the Body of Christ, we offer worship through Jesus to the heavenly Father. If at no other time during our week, the Mass is our best opportunity to remember how the love of God should be at the very heart of who we are and all that we do.

The Mass also offers us the chance to deepen our love of others. We pray for those whom we know who are in need, we practice charity to those who are around us, we remember our beloved dead and we pray for them especially in this month of November. Perhaps more than anything, we pray for wisdom so that God can show us how he wants us to practice love of him and love of neighbor in concrete ways, in the situations and circumstances of our daily lives, according to the vocation to which he has called us or is calling us.

Friends, the commandments of God – and those of the Church as well – are not given to us to be oppressive and restrictive. Rather they are like rules of the road for our souls: they help us to be well that which God has created us to be. Each time we come to Mass we learn anew how to praise God in and through Jesus our Lord, and we learn how to let his love take root in us so that we can love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus doesn’t just command this of us – he comes to us in the Holy Eucharist to help us achieve it. Let us turn our minds and hearts toward our loving God, in praise of him, and in gratitude for the ways that he enables us to accomplish all that he has commanded.

Washed by Blood: All Saints' Day

Fra Angelico, Christ Glorified in the Court of Heaven (c. 1430)

One of the things you learn at a university is how to begin to take personal responsibility. If you don’t have it already, college definitely teaches you – often via a “sink or swim” method – that you are responsible for yourself. You can wake up in time to go to class, or not. You can learn good study habits, or not. You can learn how to exist on something other than Ramen noodles, or not.

The sharp learning curve of the university experience can be a bit harsh, but it also can be a good introduction into how our culture tends to operate. After all, self-reliance and self-motivation are virtues that we value very highly. Whether it’s sports or business or personal growth, most of us tend to believe that nothing is beyond our reach if only we are willing to put in the effort to get there. Even the hardest or highest goals, we tell ourselves, can be reached if you’re willing to put in the blood, sweat, and tears.

Today’s Solemnity of All Saints, at first glance, might indicate that this idea is even true in terms of our eternal salvation. After all, a saint is nothing other than a person who is in heaven, and surely those in heaven had to work hard to get there! Jesus gives us a kind of road map of how salvation can be worked out in today’s Gospel, and it certainly sounds like it must take a lot of effort. Being poor in spirit, merciful, clean of heart, peacemakers, even persecuted for the sake of righteousness – that all sounds like a lot of hard work.

But there’s something inherently wrong with believing that getting to heaven is mostly about our own efforts. In the last few months, Pope Francis has been writing and speaking about how often we operate out of the belief that we can be good and holy without God’s help. That view is actually an old heresy called Pelagianism that the Church condemned long ago but which still crops up all the time. As Pope Francis says, because we are formed in a culture that values self-reliance, individual autonomy, and hard work, we tend to think that our salvation is ultimately something that depends upon us and our own efforts, like making it to class, studying for a test, or eating something other than Ramen.

The problem with this view is that it doesn’t have any place for God. Holiness is not something ultimately about merely trying hard enough, or developing sufficient interior strength to make it happen on our own. Rather, holiness is about receiving what God wants to give us, and ultimately being conformed to Christ. There’s no doubt that holiness does require self-discipline and hard work, at times, to become the saint that God has created us to be. But everything starts with God and what he is doing, rather than with us. The saints are not super-humans who had capacities for self-discipline and moral excellence far beyond our own. They were ordinary men and women who became extraordinary because they got out of God’s way and received what he wanted to give them.

In the first reading today, John the Evangelist describes his vision of seeing “great multitude… from every nation, race, people, and tongue.” This is the apocalyptic vision of the men and women who are in heaven at the end of time. But as John describes, they didn’t get there through their own striving, but rather because they have been made clean through the blood of the Lamb. Blood would seem to be a strange thing to use to make something clean; unless you are talking about sins and washing them away through the blood of Jesus Christ. The saints are not those who tried hard enough but rather those who were washed clean from their sins by the grace of Jesus Christ and through that grace they became like him. They lived out those Beatitudes mentioned in the Gospel not through their own efforts alone but by cooperating with God’s gift and his power working within them.

Friends, we are called to be a part of that “great multitude” that St. John describes. To get to heaven is the highest goal – indeed, the only true goal – that any of us should have. But if we rely merely upon our own blood, sweat, and tears to reach it, we will fall short. Instead we must rely upon the blood of the Lamb – God’s grace given to us in Christ, which we receive especially through the sacraments. Having received it, we then can seek to follow Jesus’s road map of becoming “blessed” and joining that heavenly number.