Showing posts with label Corporal Works of Mercy. Show all posts

Lent - Conversion Must be Visible

Today at the campus-wide Ash Wednesday Mass at Marian, Fr. Joe gave an enthusiastic homily exhorting everyone to remember their Christian vocation of being "ambassadors for Christ" (from the second reading, II Corinthians 5:20-6:2).  He noted that in our day and age we tend to forget this basic call, this fundamental part of being Christian, and Lent is a chance to "be reconciled to God" (again from St. Paul) "rend[ing] our hearts" (from the first reading, Joel 2:12-18).  

 I learned that there are two correct phrases that can be said when you receive the ashes: "remember man you are dust and to dust you shall return" (the one I have always heard) or "turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel".  Either way, of course, we must remember the importance of repentance and conversion, that's what penance is all about (see my previous post), but as Fr. Joe reminded us today, that interior conversion, that reorienting ourselves towards God, must reverberate through our entire life and carry us out to carry on the mission of Our Lord in the world.  As he explained, prayer, fasting, and alms-giving must go together.  We can't just stop at making ourselves better through fasting and prayer and consider our Lenten mission accomplished.  We must also extrovert, or externalize, this internal following of Christ in the giving of alms.  Fr. Joe really pounded this point home through a story, which I will take the space to tell (because it's a great story):

A man in a city on the East Coast was exiting the metro station, about to arrive home, when he was accosted by an armed young man who demanded that he hand over his wallet.  The man complied, handing over his wallet, but as the thief hurried off he called after him and offered to give him his coat as well, since it was bitterly cold and the the thief didn't have one.  The young man was shocked at this generosity and returned to the older man, and they eventually got into a conversation.  The older man asked his assailant why he robbed him and the young man replied that he had no money and needed something to eat.  At this the older man replied that if the younger man had just asked for a meal, he would have happily provided it.  As the story continued, the older gentleman did just that, taking this guy who robbed him out to eat, and in the end, the would-be-robber returned both coat and wallet and left the restaurant determined to make something out of his life, completely changed from the experience of generosity.
Fr. Joe told the story much better than I have related it here, but I think it still beautifully shows how lent is a time of both internalizing and externalizing the life of Christ, it's about conversion both inside and outside of ourselves.  Fasting, as I explained in that previous post, is about suffering, but it is also about opening ourselves up to Christ.  Alms-giving is about aiding the poor, but it is also about doing all the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.  Prayer is about speaking to God, but it is also about listening, and it is about asking for God's help and mercy for ourselves, but it is also about interceding for others.  In short, Lent is a time to learn to be unselfish - prayer, fasting, alms-giving, they must all lead to our internal growth towards Christ and our external living of that life of Christ.  

The reading from mid-afternoon prayer today, which I ran across shortly after starting this post, tells us to "Atone for your sins by good deeds, and for you misdeeds by kindness to the poor; then your prosperity will be long." [Daniel 4:24]  I happily noted that it succinctly recounted what I was trying to get at in this post, that our atonement (conversion) must entail more than sacrifice, or even sacrifice offered with the correct internal orientation towards Christ, it must lead to us living our lives in such a way that it is obvious to all that we follow Christ.  Today this is easy, everybody can see the smudge of ash that is more-or-less cross-shaped on our foreheads, but tomorrow, and every other day, we must continue to keep this symbol in mind.  Those ashes, like the other penances we undertake during this Lent, must remind us that we are dust and to dust we shall return, and because of this we must constantly strive to redirect our lives towards Christ, and His cross - internally and externally.  Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel!
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Take Up Your Cross! (This means loving God and neighbor)

Aaron, the cantor at Mass this morning, picked as the opening song Take Up Your Cross.  I thought it was an appropriate song because it was Friday, a day that we all should remember Our Lord's offering of Himself on the cross on Good Friday (and, of course, our calling to do the same).  What I didn't know was that the Gospel, Mark 8:34-9:1, was where we find Jesus telling us exactly that (good job Aaron!).  Now, onto what this post is really about, Fr. Joe commented at the beginning of Mass that we must align our cross with Christ's.  I had hear before that we must carry our cross, but the way that Fr. Joe noted that we must align our cross with the cross of Jesus, made me think about this in a much deeper way.  I always thought of picking up one's cross as in accepting all of life's difficulties, losses, struggles, and fears, offering them up to Christ, and growing closer to Him (becoming more like Him) by carrying our cross.  However, as Fr. Joe expounded in the homily (I'm paraphrasing) we must also carry more than just our personal crosses.  Jesus carried His cross for others.  He carried His cross out of love for humanity.  The cross isn't just about enduring through suffering, it is also about love.  Enduring through suffering can lead us to love of God, but ideally our crosses should also lead us to love of neighbor.  The cross is hard because it doesn't mean just accepting those things that we can't control and offering them up, it also means seriously living out our faith (it involve denying oneself).  As James told us this morning: "If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,” but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?  So also faith of itself if it does not have works, is dead." [James 2:14-17]  

Huston Smith, in his book, Why Religion Matters, talked about the image of the cross and how we are connected both with God (vertical beam) and our neighbor (horizontal beam).  I disagreed with many of his conclusions, but this, I think, is a helpful analogy.  Our connection with God is all-important, thus, accepting crosses for love of God, to obey Jesus, and to model our lives after His is extremely important (which is why it is the longer beam), but, we must not forget that Jesus's cross wasn't just an offering to His Father, it was also an offering for us, and it was how Our Lord showed God's immense love for us.  Using Smith's picture, we have to have the horizontal beam as well (even if it is shorter) in order to have the complete cross.  This, I think, is what Pope Francis is trying to say to us.  He isn't throwing out the vertical beam - our relationship with God involving morality, sacraments, etc. (the spiritual works of mercy) - but he is emphasizing that we don't forget the horizontal.  Our faith, our relationship with God, must lead to works, especially those that James mentioned (the corporal works of mercy).

St. Maximilian Kolbe is a fantastic example of the extremes that Christ calls us to show love for others. 
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Ending Poverty with Truth

Pope Francis recently gave a talk to the diplomatic corps in which he said:
"As you know, there are various reasons why I chose the name of Francis of Assisi, a familiar figure far beyond the borders of Italy and Europe, even among those who do not profess the Catholic faith. One of the first reasons was Francis’ love for the poor. How many poor people there still are in the world! And what great suffering they have to endure! After the example of Francis of Assisi, the Church in every corner of the globe has always tried to care for and look after those who suffer from want, and I think that in many of your countries you can attest to the generous activity of Christians who dedicate themselves to helping the sick, orphans, the homeless and all the marginalized, thus striving to make society more humane and more just. But there is another form of poverty! It is the spiritual poverty of our time, which afflicts the so-called richer countries particularly seriously. It is what my much-loved predecessor, Benedict XVI, called the “tyranny of relativism”, which makes everyone his own criterion and endangers the coexistence of peoples. And that brings me to a second reason for my name. Francis of Assisi tells us we should work to build peace. But there is no true peace without truth! There cannot be true peace if everyone is his own criterion, if everyone can always claim exclusively his own rights, without at the same time caring for the good of others, of everyone, on the basis of the nature that unites every human being on this earth." [my emphasis]
I see a lot of people fighting against material poverty, and that is certainly important, but we cannot ignore spiritual poverty.  Really, that is the bigger problem, the greater evil, the worse deprivation.  As Christians we need to do both the corporal and the spiritual works of mercy.  Doing the corporal works of mercy is easier, more rewarding, and a source of prestige.  Feeding, clothing, healing; they are all things that people like to see others doing.  The spiritual works of mercy, on the other hand, have few benefits (on earth); it's tough to forgive, to admonish, to pray.  There aren't many people handing you Nobel prizes for praying or confronting people about their sins...  

It's unfortunate, but people don't always search for the truth these days - the "dictatorship of relativism" as said by Pope Benedict Emeritus is a big problem in our world.  Is there objective, always-true, truth?  Or is the good, the beautiful, the right, the true, just what I want it to be?  Pope Francis is saying that the antidote to poverty, and the precursor to peace, is accepting the truth.

We are coming up on Holy Week and this topic reminds me of Pilate's question to Jesus: "What is truth?" (John 18:38).  Truth, folks, is the person standing before Pilate, Jesus Christ.  His words directly before Pilate's question are "For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.  Every one who is of the truth hears my voice." (John 18:37)  That is the mission of the Christian, to hear Christ's voice.  Our world is full of noise and distraction, and especially during Lent we pray, fast, and give alms, to grow closer to God, to hear His voice, to know His truth, and thus, to proclaim it to the world.  Welcome to the Church Militant folks!
Ecce Homo - Behold the Man
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