Friends

What a treasure true friends are:

Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words but to pour them all out, just as it is, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and then, with the breath of kindness blow the rest away. -Marian Evans (George Eliot)

The Road of Life

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~bsinger/roadlife.html

Fra. Paul

Father Paul now has his own blog at http://friarpaul.blogspot.com/ - only two posts so far, but they're a good read.

The Good Samaritan

The scholar of the law in today's Gospel (Luke 10:25-37) must have regretted opening his big mouth. First, he asks what he must do to inherit eternal life, is asked for his opinion, and recites what we now think of as the two great commandments of the law: love of God, and love of neighbor. Jesus tells him that he is entirely correct, but he just can't keep his mouth shut. He wants to seem smart, but Jesus, by making him answer his own question, has made the question seem a bit too easy. So instead of sitting down, he asks who is neighbor is. And at that point he gets into trouble, because the answer, of course, is that his neighbor is a Samaritan, someone who as a good Jew he would look down upon or perhaps even hate.

I was reminded of the story from the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 19, where the rich young man asks almost the same question - what must I do to gain eternal life? Jesus tells him to follow the commandments and he replies that he has, adding "What do I still lack?" And here again comes trouble: Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. (Matthew 19:21-22)

I'm not 100% sure what moral to take away from these two stories. There's an obvious cautionary tale about asking questions when you're not prepared to hear the answers. The scholar of the law is simply trying to demonstrate his own intellect, an avocation in which all of us have probably engaged from time to time, but a dangerous one. The rich young man is perhaps a bit better off: he seems to sense an emptiness in his own life, asking not "Do I lack anything?" but "WHAT do I still lack?" But both men receive stunning, life-changing answers, calling them to a radical form of compassion for which they are not prepared.

At a deeper level, both stories remind us that there is always more we can do to draw ourselves closer to God. We may feel that we are keeping the commandments, and most of us probably are. I haven't killed or purposefully injured anyone lately (though I did inadvertently allow Michael to do a face-plant on the living room carpeting this afternoon, which must have hurt like crazy) and I do my best to be honest, generous, and so on. I'm even attempting to cultivate the virtue of humility, though without too much success. But, am I really opening myself up to the compassion of God? The mercy of God? The faithfulness of God? In some ways, yes, but in other ways, no.

And I think that's really the good news of this Gospel for me: I often find myself engaged in a struggle against sins that might be best described as banal. It's not that I shouldn't attempt to avoid those sins: I should, and I do, and I probably will still be struggling against them fifty years from now, if I'm still alive. But I don't think those sins are what's really holding me back from Christian perfection: more than anything, they are reminders that I haven't really opened myself radically to God. If I could really love the poor (rather than giving money to people and organizations, and talking to them sometimes), if I could really love God (rather than going to Mass faithfully and praying a few minutes a day), if I could really love those who hate me (I don't know exactly how many of those there are, and while I've mostly avoided hating them, I can't say I love them either), then I could be a much better person than I am today. Maybe some of my venial sins would work themselves out if I could only manage to truly give myself over to God.

I don't really know how to do that, and I'm sure it's not an instantaneous process either, but I'm trying. I think the hardest part is that avoiding sin is really a question of following a set of rules. I think like an engineer and rules make sense to me. I don't always like the rules, and I don't always find it easy to follow the rules, but they're fairly tangible and it's usually pretty straightforward to determine whether you're following them or not. Did I give money to the poor? Consult checkbook. Did I feed the hungry? Consult calendar. Did I commit murder? Nope. On the other hand, living a life of love is a sort of soft skill, like making small talk or putting someone at ease. It's really not about what you do, but how you do it. I find this much more difficult. You can't quantify it: how do you rate the amount of ease at which you put someone? How do you measure your love for God? Of course, you don't. But I'm so used to passing tests and getting my report card and running performance benchmarks and measuring efficiency that this is a hard thing for me to get my hands around, and I don't feel comfortable with it. But I guess I'll give it a shot.

So All May Eat

Here's a story from the LA Times on the SAME Cafe in Denver.

It's a restaurant with no prices. Anyone can come in and eat a meal anytime. They pay whatever they can, or offer some service for the meal.

See also the One World Everybody Eats Foundation, home of a similar restaurant in Salt Lake City.

Pearls Before Breakfast

Can one of the nation's great musicians cut through the fog of a D.C. rush hour? Let's find out.

I mentioned this article in our small group at last Thursday's meeting, but I thought you all might like to read it.

Lord, please wake us up to the beauty in our world!

Into your hands, Lord

And so it begins. We waved our palms with enthusiasm and great zeal just a few days ago. We thought the Messiah was going to be a powerful ruler, a great king, a military master. Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? How can He save the world by remaining silent, by lying down while the powers of the world stomp all over Him? And yet, this is how He came. In humility. In peace. Does Jesus get swept up in the excitement of the crowd upon His entry into Jerusalem, or is He instead weeping inside, knowing the great betrayal He will experience in just a few days time.

Why did we turn on Him? I say we because it is we. Like it or not, we are part of the human family. We are the crowd. The soldiers who drove the nails into his hand, that lifted up the sponge soaked with wine to mock Jesus. I don't want to believe that I am part of this. I want to run away from this. Jesus, no I would never turn on you like this. Not like this. But if we don't accept that we are part of the crowd, do we take ourselves away also from the mercy of Jesus?

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." We are the them.

It is in the great sacrament of Reconciliation that we come to see our own part in this play. Our holding of the whips, our placing of the crown of thorns upon His head, our shouting "Crucify Him!" But in this great moment, this admission of myself as one of them, Christ awesomely pours out His mercy- like a waterfall, unending. Into your hands, Lord, I commend my spirit. Let us echo the words of Christ on the cross as we seek to be united more closely to Him in this awesome mystery of His death.