The
second reading today is St. Paul's letter to Timothy and he is writing about
the sufferings he is
baring and how he is even in chains for the love of Christ
and for the good of the Gospel as he goes forth to spread the good news of
salvation in the world. It's a common thing for him to do - indeed in the lives
of the saints as indicated throughout the centuries that it's a good thing for
us to reflect on the ways in which we suffer with the Lord, to reflect upon on
own sufferings, to reflect upon the sufferings of Christ. In light of that, it
came to me of another account of one who was praying with the idea of
sufferings - St. Faustina Kowalska. St. Faustina is the great apostle of Divine
Mercy. If you pray the Divine Mercy chaplet or if you've ever heard of the
Divine Mercy, it came through her. The Lord Jesus appeared to her and gave her
the good news to be able to spread His mercy to the world. St. Faustina was one
who received a special grace of receiving visions from Christ. The Lord came
and gave her a unique experience - not just meditating on the mysteries of the
sufferings of Jesus - but experiencing them herself: to experience what it was
to be scourged, to experience the crown of thorns, to experience the pain and
sorrow of His heart of being rejected by His disciples as they all fled except
for John. She experienced these things in a unique way. She knew the sufferings
of Jesus, and she tried to unite herself to them. One day she was in the chapel
and the Lord came and gave her a different experience of sufferings. And He
showed her a multiple of a people, a great number of people; three groups. He
looked at her and said, "Do you see these people?" She said,
"Yes." And He described them to her, "See the first group. They
are simply holding their cross. The second, they have their cross on their
shoulder. They are walking, but dragging their cross behind them reluctantly.
The third group - see that they are nailed to their cross." She gazed out
and saw these things, and the Lord said to her: to the extent to which you unite
yourself to my suffering (to the extent to which you nail yourself to the
cross, to allow yourself to die) to that extent you will also be with Me in
glory. To the extent that you suffer with me, to that extent you will receive
glory. That's essentially what St. Paul also says in the scripture today, that
if we die with Christ we will live with Him, and if we persevere, we will reign
with Him. If we allow ourselves to be united to Christ in His suffering, in
imitation of His obedience to the Father, we will share in His glory.
That
story came to mind because we essentially see those three groups of people,
those three responses to the will of God, in the scriptures today. Two of those
we see embodied in the person of Naaman. The ones holding their crosses are the
ones who recognize the cross; they see the cross, they know the plan of God,
and yet they say, "No." They recognize the cross, but refuse to
follow. That was Naaman. We saw in past days (it's not in full text here today)
that Naaman was one who was very hard of heart. He was one who was inflicted
with an illness. It was common for one to go from place to place to place to
find who might be the best healer so that you might be healed. Evidently Naaman
had tried a number of places, and yet they were not effective. And so he goes
to Elisha, the great prophet of Israel and successor to Elijah, because he
knows Elisha is a man of great power, a man of God. Naaman comes to Elisha and
says, "I want to be healed. What do I do?" Elisha say, "Go dip
yourself seven times in the river." And Naaman comments that there is
nicer water where he is from, and that he has seen more healings over there -
that seems a rather small thing to do, rather simple, just to dunk himself in
the water seven times. "No. I'm not doing that. That's too simple. God
doesn't work that way, God wouldn't heal that way. It has to be something much
bigger." And he starts to walk away. He sees his cross and says no. Naaman
begins to leave, but one of his servants comes up to him and tells him to stop.
The servants says, "If He had asked you to do something great and big,
something difficult, you would've easily done it because you would've thought
that was the will of God for you. But He's asking you to do something so
simple. Just to go to the river and wash in it seven times. You've come all
this way, all this time, all this effort, all this money, resources for us all
to come here with you. Why not just go try?" And Naaman has a moment of
conversion and says ok. He goes, plunges seven times in the water (that's where
we pick up today) and he is healed. He goes back to Elisha because he realizes
who God is, that God doesn't work in exactly the manner he desires, but he is
willing to follow the Lord as the Lord desires. To do God's will, rather than
to hold the cross, look at it and say no. But rather to climb upon the cross
and allow himself and his will to be crucified, that the will of the Father
might be made manifest.
It's
interesting that he comes back to Elisha and he wants to give a gift, some type
of monetary gift or donation to show his gratitude. A lot of times we see that
- we receive a blessing from God and we want to do something in return. Elisha
says, "No that's not why I'm here. I don't want anything." But we see
an interesting response on Naaman's part who says that if Elisha won't take the
gift than to at least let him take two mule loads of dirt back home. To us that
seems an odd request, but for them it was quite sensible and a profound
expression of faith. In the days of Elisha the prophet, there was an
understanding that gods were localized, that there was a god of this place, and
that place, and the god that place. Wherever you were that's where your god
was, that's who your god was. When Naaman realizes he was healed, that's why he
says, "Now I believe that there are no other gods, but the God of Israel
[the God of this place]." All the others are fake. This One is real, and
it's this One that I want to be with, it's this God. But he also knows that he
wants to go back home where he's from, so he needs this God, of this land. He
wants to take two mule loads worth of dirt, so that the God of Israel might
come with him as he brings a part of Israel back home and that he could build
an altar on that dirt, and there offer sacrifices to that God. He is
essentially saying, "I've been healed and I want to do anything and
everything to be united to this God because I know this One has power." A
great testament of faith.
We
see a similar testament in the Gospel as we have the ten lepers. Again, one of
them is cleansed and comes back and throws himself at the feet of Jesus, much
like Naaman did with Elisha, thanking God for such a profound blessings. Again,
he too realizes the way in which God has worked, that the will of God has been
made manifest. He climbs up onto the cross to rejoice and follow the Lord,
whatever may be the cost.
These
are two great examples, but the problem is that group of the nine. The nine
should trouble us a bit. The nine who receive healing from Jesus Himself. They
too receive that simple penance of go wash in the water, except it's go show
yourself to the priest - an easy thing. They don't expect God to work in that
way, but they kind of humor Him in a sense. And when they are healed, they
don't come back. And that group is the middle group that was describe to St.
Faustina - the one's who pick up their cross, but still try to go their own
way, they drag it grudgingly because they don't really want to follow the will
of God, but they will if they have to. That's them - the nine. The ones who go
offer, and they recognize the will of God. They go with it a bit, but they
still try to make it their own path, still try to make the cross their own, not
simply to climb upon it and allow the Father's will to be perfectly completed.
My
brothers and sisters, the nine is the easy way, and the nine is us. We are the
nine. A lot of times we can be the one who is reluctant and completely
hard-hearted to God, and a lot of times we can be the one that's completely
open to God and everything He desires of us perfectly. But majority of the
time, we are the nine. We are the ones who accept the will of God, but we still
want it our way. "I'll do your will Father, but let me tell you how it
should be done, when it should be done, and what manner it should be done. I'll
do Your will Lord. I'll allow myself to suffering a bit, but I'm not going to
the extent at which You desire. I'll do your will, but I'm not going all the
way." It's a reluctance of our hearts. Second best when it comes to it.
The
scary thing is - the devil loves second best. He loves it. We don't talk about
the devil enough these days, unfortunately. Maybe I should. But the devil is
real, and the scriptures say that he is prowling about like a roaring lion
waiting for someone to devour. He's looking after each of us, every moment of
the day, he and the other demons of the earth, prowling around trying to find
ways to lead us from Christ. They are not so foolish as to come and put the
thought in our mind to completely reject Jesus or completely reject His will.
They are not foolish enough to think that we would fall for that because
usually we see it for what it is, that it's clearly not God, clearly something
that's turning me away from Christ, no. When we see a firm rejection of Christ,
we usually recognize it for what it is. The devil knows that. Rather choose
that path and be completely rejected, the devil encourages us to choose second
best. Whatever he can do to get us a little bit closer to himself and a little
bit farther from Christ. Anything that he can do to gain us a little less grace
than we would have, to love Christ a little less than we could have, to be able
to follow the Lord a little less closely and to be more concerned with my will
than I would have been otherwise. That's what the devil loves, and it's our job
not to make the devil happy. It's our job to reject his lies, because he's a
lie and a deceiver. So often, he points out things to us a if they were good,
but it's only because he knows they are the second best, and it's his hope to
draw us away form the Lord.
Christ
calls us, and He calls us to perfect obedience. To allow ourselves to truly be
crucified, and not simply to grudgingly carry our cross, dragging it behind us.
He calls us to much more because He wants us to have His glory. Remember, if we
die with Him, we will live with Him, and if we persevere, we will reign with
Him. To the extent that we allow our sufferings to be united to Him in this
life, to the extent that we are obedient to the Father in imitation of Him, to
that same extent we will share in His glory. That's a big thing - to allow
ourselves to rejoice in the glory of God the Father for eternity. It's the good
that Christ calls us to.
There
are many things that we could reflect upon on how we respond to the will of God.
We could look at how we bear our own crosses, our own sufferings. We could look
at the ways in which we desire healing, much like the ones in the Gospels. We
could look at the ways in which we struggle with the will of God in various
other courses of our life. But I want to invite you to reflect upon three ways
in which God calls us to Himself. They are rather simple, and yet I think they
are the foundation of our entire life of faith. How obedient are we to the
Father's will in the manner of these three things: confession, Mass and daily
prayer.
I've
often said, and preached a number of times about it, that for us to have growth
in the spiritual life, for us to have a life of faith that's actually
nourishing and productive, producing fruits of the Holy Spirit, we must go to
confession monthly, Mass weekly, and prayer daily. You want growth? There is
your system. The Church sets the bar rather low for us because She knows it's
difficult for us sometimes, because we do struggle with carrying the cross -
nine out of the ten lepers struggled with it. The Church recognizes and sets
the bar low for us, but encourages us to go higher. We are required to go to
confession once a year. But who among us would rather go an entire year of
harming relationships only to have to say, "I'm sorry" once and it
covers everything? Do we not rather whenever we hurt someone we love, go back
and apologize rather quickly? Do we not rather go back and ask forgiveness for
our faults, rather than wait for 2, 10, 12 months later when it doesn't really
hit us as much? To go to Reconciliation regularly is a wonderful grace to allow
us to encounter the mercy and healing of Christ, to heal the relationship which
is so often wounded by our sins though we can be unaware of it.
The
Church calls us to go to Mass once a week. We are obligated once a week on
Sundays to attend Holy Mass as well as on the Holy Days of Obligation, so it's
about 57 times a year. This year you get off easy because a couple of Holy Days
are on Sunday, so I think we are down to 55 days, 55 hours, that God calls us
to be at Mass. 55 hours. Who among us has worked more than 55 hours in the past
week? Think about the time you put in just in a workweek or the time you spend
just on your children or grandchildren. Think about those relationships and how
important they are for you. God calls us for 57 hours roughly, a very small
amount. He would love more, certainly. But for us to be able to recognize that.
Even if that's the best we can do, because work obligations sometimes prevent
us from getting to daily Mass and such, but if that's the best we can do - it's
to squeeze every drop of the joy, grace and peace that we can out of this Mass.
To enter into it as fully as we can, and to rejoice in the celebration of Mass,
this encounter with Christ in the altar.
Lastly,
daily prayer. Daily prayer is really the key to all of this because we can go
to confession frequently, we can go to Mass weekly, but if we don't have that
encounter with prayer, our relationship with Christ really will not grow.
Because basically it becomes simply a means of becoming a checklist
conversation. Our novena prayers, where you pray the same thing every week, on
Thursdays we pray a novena to the Mother of Perpetual Help, it's good, it's
holy, it's beautiful. But if our relationship with the Lord is based off a
script, there's an issue. If our relationship with Christ is based of someone
else's words or prayer, rather than my own encounter with Him, allowing my
heart to speak to Him and His heart to speak to me, than it's not really a
relationship. It's a book, a story we read about. It's not a relationship with
Christ.
How
faithful are we in obedience to the Father? Confession, Mass, daily prayer. He
sets the bar low because He wants us to come, but as soon as we commit, He
invites us to come higher, to go more, to go farther, because He loves us.
Because He wants us to share in His glory. He wants to have us experience His
peace, ultimately just like the ones in the scriptures, because He wants to
heal our aching hearts.
Let
us pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit in this Mass, the Holy Spirit who is
already residing in our hearts by virtue of Baptism, that He might come and be
stirred up once again. As the Lord Jesus comes to us in the gift of the
Eucharist, we might be able to have those blessed gifts come and conform our
hearts, soften our hearts convert our hearts once more today, to be able to
seek the will of the Father and to do it with joy.
Readings for Sunday, December 31 / Holy Family: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14 | Psalm128 | Colossians 3:12-21 | Luke 2:22-40
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