Sunday, April 23, 2017

9. The Covenant (3 pages)

July 11, 2008

    I was struck by Fr. Ralph’s homily at the 5:00 community Eucharist in the University chapel today.  His insight may become a transforming moment in my involvement with Jesus.  For the Sacrament of the Word, he chose the readings for the feast of St. Benedict.  The Gospel story revolved around a question of Peter, “Lord, we have left all to follow you;  what will we receive in return?”  Ralph framed his reflections with the suggestion that, in the very question, Peter revealed that he did not yet “get it.”  If he had left all, he would not be wondering what there was in it for him.  In a direct and simple way, he then filled the void left by the question with a comparison that bore witness to his years of living the gospel in the spirit of Francis of Assisi.  Francis espoused Lady Poverty so that, having nothing, he would welcome everything as gift.

       (A comparison:  A husband or wife who followed the assertion that he or she had given up everything to enter the marriage with the question, “What’s in it for me?” fails to understand the vows that committed them to a marriage in Christ.)

    As I so often do, I smiled throughout his homily.  My delight went beyond the fact that he triggered exciting theological reflections in me;  it was also an expression of my joy in him.  And as I commit these reflections to writing, I realize once again how much I am indebted to Hosea’s vision of a God who enters into a marriage union with human beings.  (Hosea is the prophet whose metaphors of intimacy are still being explored by those who embrace an incarnational theology.)  In my head and heart, Fr. Ralph’s words echoed the passage in which Hosea countered the fears of Israelites that God had abandoned them with the promise that God was drawing Israel to himself through “human bonds.”  Each time I read that passage, I experience a sense of gratitude that the intimate love among Father, Word and Spirit urged the eternal Word to become fully human, as the only way that even God could be fully involved with human beings.

    Fr. Ralph’s words also echoed Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus and the hymn in the Prologue in John which celebrated the incarnation of the eternal Word.  As a living word of God, the story and the hymn present the Incarnation as the sign and seal of the covenant between a triune God and human beings.  And this understanding of the covenant found expression in Francis’s focus on the Crib, the Cross and the Eucharist and on the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.  Working backwards, these vows were designed to foster the realization among his followers that all is gift.  I have long believed that intellectually, but Fr. Ralph’s penetrating words reminded me that, before I let some people into my life, I catch myself wondering what is in it for me.

    Here, I must confess that I have never lived the vow of poverty so rigorously that I habitually see all as gift, as Francis did.  Theologically, however, I have long been convinced that God’s covenant with human beings voiced the longing of each of the divine Persons for deepening involvement in the lives of each unique individual.  As such, it could not be a contract supplemented with promised rewards and threatened punishments.  The point at issue surfaces when I grieve over the fact that I have no wife, children and grandchildren to share my old age with, and the issue is magnified, not erased, when friends assure me that I have made a difference in their lives.  Ralph’s words spoke to this recurring grief.  They reminded me that, from childhood, I have longed for a deepening involvement with each of the three divine Persons in the Triune God and with all the unique human beings I encountered in a personal journey spanning over 77 years.

    Consequently, when I revisit my life with gratitude rather than grieving, I realize that my journey with the Father began with an almost mystical awareness that the Creator of this vast universe was aware of me, a lost child roaming the fields of a Nebraska farm.  Over time, it evoked a longing to be involved in intensely personal ways with everyone sent into my life by the Father’s providence.  As this experience gave form and direction to my life as a priest, I do not recall wondering “what was in it for me” in the graced moments of my journey.  But the question was surely there, since it surfaced with a vengeance during a devastating mid-life crisis.

    At that time, I discovered that the ways that I “lost myself” fostered a smoldering resentment, set me up for repeated failures, and burdened me with a crippling case of “good old Catholic guilt.”  Through dear friends, I became involved with Charismatics, and this involvement taught me an invaluable lesson.  I was so often jarred by the ways that they read the Scriptures and by their frequent embrace of magical practices and formulae to ward off the devil that, on my own, I would have dismissed them as kooks.  But through them, I encountered the Holy Spirit in a life-giving way.  Initially, these encounters enabled me to accept the fact that I could not be “all things to all people.”  For a time, this acceptance seemed to require that I surrender all longings because they seemed to plunge me into excruciating painful involvements.  But as I learned how to be still and listen, I came to understand that events which triggered my inner turmoil tapped deeply buried pain and denied crippling fears.  And this understanding denied legitimacy to a spirituality which characterized the ways that I had lost myself as a fitting sacrifice of praise to God.

    For several years, I was unable to appreciate the way that Jesus’ call, “Take up your daily cross and follow me,” was an invitation to allow him to liberate me from the carefully guarded self-sufficiency and repertoire of self-protective emotional reactions that kept pain, fear, rage and shame so deeply buried.  In some ways, I was ready to respond to the invitation because I had heeded the Father’s call to be open to wounded individuals whom I was tempted to avoid.  And though this may be heavy-handed commentary, I had already experienced that there was a gift for me in these encounters, since they forced me to acknowledge that I must passionately seek intimacy with Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit if I am to live my involvements with others with intellectual honesty, personal integrity, inner peace and spontaneous joy.



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