Jesus' instruction to Peter after the resurrection was: "Feed my sheep." It was an important instruction, so important that Jesus repeated it three times. Now, I know that biblical scholars typically interpret the three times that Jesus asks Peter whether or not Peter loves Him and the subsequent injunction to feed His sheep as a counter to Peter's three denials before the crucifixion. That's the scholarly interpretation. However, I think it was more than Jesus simply giving Peter three opportunities to re-affirm his love for Him. I think the role of shepherd was key to Jesus' understanding of Himself and His mission and I think Jesus' intention was to impress this upon Peter.
Jesus goes to great lengths in the Gospel of John in describing Himself as the Good Shepherd. Elsewhere, Jesus speaks of the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep in order to search out and bring back one lost sheep. Frequently, in teaching the crowds who came to Him, Jesus sees them and has compassion on them because they are like sheep without a shepherd. The image of Christ as the Good Shepherd was one of the most beloved images of Christ in the early Church.
I fail to understand the vision of Benedict XVI of a "leaner, meaner church with conservative doctrine and compliant faithful"[1]. Is it not his role as chief shepherd to seek out the lost and to work for an increase in the flock entrusted to his care? Yet it seems that he, as well as others, are working diligently to threaten and discipline a restive flock into submission.
If I were a priest, bishop, cardinal, or pope I would be quaking in my clerical collar upon hearing these words of the prophet Jeremiah, which were proclaimed today:
Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture, says the Lord....
You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them.
"Feed my sheep," Jesus said--not drive them away.
[1] Full article:
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/4476/catholic_church_targets_proponent_of_women%E2%80%99s_ordination%3B_feminist_theologian/
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Saturday, July 21, 2012
Becoming Prayer
There comes a point in the spiritual life when you cannot pray. At least, you cannot pray in the way you would like. Perhaps you have been through this before and after awhile you discovered a new way to pray. But this time is different. This time nothing satisfies. This time there is no growth into a different way to pray; no growth into a different form of prayer. This time the experience is one of an endless, empty waste: a desert where you find no pillar of cloud by day nor a pillar of fire by night. There is only the vast emptiness of the desert, a desert in which you cannot find so much as a burning bush. The vast emptiness of this desert is complete. Everything you formerly used to pray–prayers, pslams, songs, scriptures, everything–absolutely everything–has turned to ashes. You can find satisfaction, consolation in nothing. No thing is of any avail. You are left with an empty heart, with only the faintest desire to pray, and the fear that that desire itself will soon go out. Everywhere you turn, there is emptiness.
The temptation to give up on the spiritual life or to seek solace in activity, work, or ministry is nearly overwhelming. Prayer, over the many long years you have devoted to it, now seems far too demanding, far too difficult, and far too fruitless to continue. You seem only to have succeeded at reaching a dead end. Yet, this place of dead end, this place of no where and no thing, is a place of rare and deep grace. Now you are in God-time and God-space. Prayer becomes less your work and more God’s work. God’s work in the depths of your heart–hidden, silent, unseen, unfelt. Here God is most at home.
God fills the heart that is empty, the heart that is silent. But even this emptying is not your work, nor your accomplishment, but God’s. Blessed are the poor in spirit. It is not your doing for you cannot do it. Not being able to pray is gift and grace. To accept this gift, to accept the Divine invitation to allow this to occur, is to become prayer, not pray-er. What you feared were dying embers now burst forth in brilliant flame. You no longer pray, rather you are being prayed. A living flame of prayer burns within, a lamp never extinguished, a perpetual sanctuary lamp in the heart.
The temptation to give up on the spiritual life or to seek solace in activity, work, or ministry is nearly overwhelming. Prayer, over the many long years you have devoted to it, now seems far too demanding, far too difficult, and far too fruitless to continue. You seem only to have succeeded at reaching a dead end. Yet, this place of dead end, this place of no where and no thing, is a place of rare and deep grace. Now you are in God-time and God-space. Prayer becomes less your work and more God’s work. God’s work in the depths of your heart–hidden, silent, unseen, unfelt. Here God is most at home.
God fills the heart that is empty, the heart that is silent. But even this emptying is not your work, nor your accomplishment, but God’s. Blessed are the poor in spirit. It is not your doing for you cannot do it. Not being able to pray is gift and grace. To accept this gift, to accept the Divine invitation to allow this to occur, is to become prayer, not pray-er. What you feared were dying embers now burst forth in brilliant flame. You no longer pray, rather you are being prayed. A living flame of prayer burns within, a lamp never extinguished, a perpetual sanctuary lamp in the heart.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Listen! I'm speaking to you.
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Benedict, whose Rule for Monasteries continues to be an enduring guide for Christian life.
When I first read The Rule of St. Benedict, my initial response was: Is that all there is? The Rule was so much shorter than I expected it to be. As is the case with many first impressions, it was simply wrong. There is a great deal more to The Rule than one gets after one reading. Any monastic will affirm that it probably takes a lifetime to plumb the wisdom contained within its pages. That is probably why St. Benedict mandates that The Rule be read to the novice several times during the period of the novitiate--a time of prolonged reflection and study on The Rule. Benedict also counsels that The Rule be read daily in the life of the monastic community. Undoubtedly, Benedict knows well the human tendency to hear something and then to promptly go off and forget it.
Benedict wants the reader to do more than simply read or hear The Rule. Benedict's first word is: Listen! Listening is more than just hearing. Listening is attending. It is being attentive to more than words. It is being attentive to the speaker, to the speaker's person and voice, to the speaker's message, meaning, and call. It is being attentive to the full range of communication. Benedict's expression for this type of attention is to "attend with the ear of the heart". The first requirement of this type of attentiveness is to "shut up"--to stop the chatter, whether of tongue or thought--and to turn one's attention to the Other who is addressing us.
Benedict wants the reader to do more than simply read or hear The Rule. Benedict's first word is: Listen! Listening is more than just hearing. Listening is attending. It is being attentive to more than words. It is being attentive to the speaker, to the speaker's person and voice, to the speaker's message, meaning, and call. It is being attentive to the full range of communication. Benedict's expression for this type of attention is to "attend with the ear of the heart". The first requirement of this type of attentiveness is to "shut up"--to stop the chatter, whether of tongue or thought--and to turn one's attention to the Other who is addressing us.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
The Blame Game
"If we knew the [human heart] as God knows it, and the network of interdependence which spreads the responsibility for every sin, not only among countless people, but over many generations, we should not attempt to untwist the skeins of right and wrong. For us, justice is to forgive and to make reparation ourselves for all sin."
--Caryll Houselander, The Passion of the Infant Christ, p. 107
This is one of my favorite quotes. Houselander points out the futility of engaging in the blame game. The blame game has been a pastime of human beings since Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and offered some to Adam. Remember Adam's response when asked why he ate the forbidden fruit? "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it." Score one for the blame game. Then God asks Eve what she has done and she replies, "The serpent deceived me and I ate." Score two for the blame game. Adam blames Eve; Eve blames the serpent. So it is that human beings have been passing the blame around ever since, handing it off like a hot potato in order to avoid guilt and responsibility.
There's plenty of blame being spread around these days. Politicians are particularly good at it. Whose fault is it that the economy is in a quagmire? Who gets the blame? It's not one political party or the other. It's far more complex than that. Everyone wants to take the moral high ground by blaming the other side. But there in no moral high ground here. Everyone is at fault. While some are more at fault than others, no one is faultless. It would be far better to put energy into working toward solutions than continuing the endless cycle of blame.
Politics, however, is not the only arena rife with blame. It can be found in corporations, in families, in communities, and in the church--in short, anywhere and everywhere human beings gather. It's as though the seeds of discord were sown long ago and continue to sprout up in every age. We are tempted to believe that our opponent, our enemy, is the person or group we want to blame, but our opponent is not someone we can see. Our opponent is the evil one, the principalities and powers of this age and of every age. Someone once remarked that if the devil can convince you he does not exist, he has already won. Engaging in the blame game plays right into the evil one's hands. Can you imagine the delight with which he watches as human beings squabble with each other?
What, then, is the way out? Humility, love, and compassion toward ourselves and one another points us in the right direction. No one can know the heart of another. No one can take the moral high ground, because no one is without sin. That's the lesson of the story of the woman taken in adultery in the Gospel of John. There is only one who can take the moral high ground and He did not take it. He did not blame. He did not condemn. He forgave.
--Caryll Houselander, The Passion of the Infant Christ, p. 107
This is one of my favorite quotes. Houselander points out the futility of engaging in the blame game. The blame game has been a pastime of human beings since Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and offered some to Adam. Remember Adam's response when asked why he ate the forbidden fruit? "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it." Score one for the blame game. Then God asks Eve what she has done and she replies, "The serpent deceived me and I ate." Score two for the blame game. Adam blames Eve; Eve blames the serpent. So it is that human beings have been passing the blame around ever since, handing it off like a hot potato in order to avoid guilt and responsibility.
There's plenty of blame being spread around these days. Politicians are particularly good at it. Whose fault is it that the economy is in a quagmire? Who gets the blame? It's not one political party or the other. It's far more complex than that. Everyone wants to take the moral high ground by blaming the other side. But there in no moral high ground here. Everyone is at fault. While some are more at fault than others, no one is faultless. It would be far better to put energy into working toward solutions than continuing the endless cycle of blame.
Politics, however, is not the only arena rife with blame. It can be found in corporations, in families, in communities, and in the church--in short, anywhere and everywhere human beings gather. It's as though the seeds of discord were sown long ago and continue to sprout up in every age. We are tempted to believe that our opponent, our enemy, is the person or group we want to blame, but our opponent is not someone we can see. Our opponent is the evil one, the principalities and powers of this age and of every age. Someone once remarked that if the devil can convince you he does not exist, he has already won. Engaging in the blame game plays right into the evil one's hands. Can you imagine the delight with which he watches as human beings squabble with each other?
What, then, is the way out? Humility, love, and compassion toward ourselves and one another points us in the right direction. No one can know the heart of another. No one can take the moral high ground, because no one is without sin. That's the lesson of the story of the woman taken in adultery in the Gospel of John. There is only one who can take the moral high ground and He did not take it. He did not blame. He did not condemn. He forgave.
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