By Luis Casasús, General Superior of the Idente missionaries,
New York, February 03, 2019.
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Book of Jeremiah 1,4-5.17-19; 1 Corinthians 12,31.13,1-13; Saint Luke 4,21-30.
In 1951, two university football teams (A and B) were involved in a particularly rough and physical game with numerous penalties called on both sides and several injuries occurring. In the days following the game, each school newspaper took the other side and the conflict escalated to unsuspected dimensions.
Fascinated, two professors, faculty members at A and B respectively, decided to interview more than 150 students at each campus to gauge their reaction to what truly happened.
Participants were told that they needed to be as objective as possible and were given a specific set of infractions that they should look for in reviewing a short collection of tape from the game. Yet even with those parameters, knowing that they were part of a psychological study and were asked to be as objective as possible, people could not let their allegiances go. Members of A, including a majority who had never even seen a single second of the game, noted that B had committed more infractions than A did. And B students, also including a hundred who had never seen the game before, said that A committed twice as many infractions as their school.
It is not enough to say that different people have different attitudes concerning the same thing. Out of all the occurrences going on in the environment, a person selects only the data that have some significance for them. When we have strong feelings on issues, it is impossible for us to view events objectively and dispassionately. Indeed, many studies and daily events have demonstrated our inability to view events impartially; instead, we view them in a self-serving fashion.
This explains the rage of Jesus’ fellow citizens. They were blind to see the meaning of His miracles in foreign lands. Neither they could believe that a Sidonian widow and a leprous Syrian army commander were more worthy of God’s grace than they were as Jews and Nazarenes. As Saint Paul says today: For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
Hatred is universal and pervasive. Sometimes we are hated by people who are very familiar to us, like a member of our family, a friend, or a co-worker (Familiarity breeds contempt). At other times, hatred arises between people who look quite different (Differences cause hatred). But you and I have to be alert because we may also find ourselves disclosing some form of active or passive hatred, like refusal to love others by ignoring them or displaying lack of compassion and an indifferent behavior towards them. But the root of hatred is our failure to realize our true identity and the identity of our neighbor: Children of God.
Even Naaman, in the First Reading, initially felt anger when he was asked by Elijah to bathe in the Jordan river seven times in order to be healed, thinking it to be absurd and humiliating.
As Pope Francis remarked: We do not want to hear that the leper or the widow is better than me! They are outcasts! (…) This is humility, the path of humility, to feel so marginalized that we need the Salvation of the Lord. He alone saves us, not our observance of the law (March 24, 2014).
The events in today’s Readings enable us to understand the permanent need for a Mystical Recollection and Quietude. These are not “rewards” or “whims” of the Holy Spirit. Without them, we do not have a neither a true spiritual perspective nor enough energy to live up our vocation. This week we celebrated the Conversion of St. Paul, which is described in Acts 9 as a personal encounter with Christ in the form of a flash of light. Similarly, Mystical quietude is not rest or balance, it is, rather, a shake, a boost, something that accelerates our spirit in one direction, very much like a bicycle, which topples only when stops rotating. The life of Saint Paul was totally transformed from that moment: Saul, my brother, the Lord has sent me, Jesus who appeared to you on the way by which you came, that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.’ Immediately things like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight. He got up and was baptized.
Mystical Recollection and Quietude are first aid procedures of the Holy Spirit. If we do not welcome with active enthusiasm the suggestions and the littles pushes of the Holy Spirit, we will be far from a state of union with God…and these suggestions and pusses may well be the miracles God is performing “in other towns”, in a difficult brother, in the soul of an indifferent person, perhaps in the heart of an enemy like Saul.
This message of assurance and permanent confirmation is announced in the First Reading: I am the one who today makes you a fortified city, a pillar of iron, a wall of bronze, against the whole land: against Judah’s kings and princes, its priests and the people of the land. They will fight against you, but not prevail over you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.
Sometimes we soak up our attention and energies by coming up with little critiques about the behavior of our brothers and sisters. We can always find something or someone to criticize or to correct. Perhaps correcting and instructing others is an important part of our mission, but this always requires a sensitivity and an awareness of the spiritual and emotional time of our neighbor:
A father and his son took a donkey to the market. The man sat on the beast, and the boy walked. People along the way said: What a terrible thing, a big strong fellow sitting on the donkey’s back, while the youngster has to walk. So the father dismounted, and the son took his place. Soon onlookers remarked: How terrible, this man walking, and the little boy sitting. At that, they both got on the donkey’s back only to hear others say: How cruel, two people sitting on one donkey. Off they came. But other bystanders commented: How crazy, the donkey has nothing on his back and two people are walking. Finally, they were both carrying the donkey. They never did make it to market.
St Paul tells us today: Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes. If we correct others, it must be done purely for their sake and not for ours. We speak only because we sincerely care for their mission and for the Kingdom of Heaven and do not want them to be led astray.
We always have the opportunity to reverse our tendency to reject difficult brothers, in our prayer we can always find new forms of acceptance and hospitality. A well-known story says that some World War II soldiers carried the body of their fallen comrade to a small parish church after a fierce battle. They asked the pastor if they could give their friend a Christian burial in the church cemetery. The pastor asked if the dead man was a Catholic. Because his friends could not answer, the pastor regretfully turned them down. So they buried the body just outside the fence of the cemetery. The next morning when they went to bid farewell to their friend they could not locate his grave. Puzzled, they knocked again on the church door to question the priest about it. He replied: The first part of the night I stayed awake disturbed by what I had told you. The second part of the night I spent moving the fence.
Christian compassion is not limited to give things or to solve all our neighbors’ problems out of pity or sympathy. It goes deeper. It is helping people dream and make his deepest aspiration true. Christian compassion is helping the weaker ones to rise, to give them the opportunity to serve others and discover his or her personal task. Compassion is helping others discover their most authentic self. This is giving life to our fellowmen, because we cannot forget that the Spiritual Works of Mercy (Admonish sinners, Instruct the uninformed, Counsel the doubtful, Comfort the sorrowful, Be patient with those in error, Forgive offenses and Pray for the living and the dead) help to provide real life in the present, and in the future eternal life in heaven.
For those who want to save their life, will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.
Jesus sent twelve disciples and later another seventy-two. These seventy-two represent all of us, because the harvest is plentiful and there is work for all of us:
Two ladies were sharing lunch together when one said to the other: I don’t know many Christians, but somehow I can’t help regarding them as hypocrites. Said the other: But your sister-in-law, she lives in the same house with you; surely you must acknowledge that she is a devoted Christian.
That’s just it, was the eye-rolling reply. She has a very lovely disposition, and she devotes her life to missions and Catechesis, but she has never said a word to me about becoming a Christian. I know that she is fond of me, but if she believed all that, don’t you think she would not have said something?
The message of Jesus is inclusive even of those who are spiritually or physically dead. This is why St Paul wrote: We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living (Rom 14: 7-9).
St Paul gives us one of the best descriptions of love ever written. In our modern world, when people speak about love they are referring to control, lust and possessiveness. St Paul was well aware of the mixed motives behind what we do, but he believed in the power of love and its centrality for the Christian.
If love cannot be hidden, the lack of love cannot either. Those whom we serve, both the believers and unbelievers will notice that something is missing, is not authentic or real. I am nothing, Paul says. Nothing is what will happen, no matter how good it looks on the surface. We cannot get to heaven without it because it is heaven itself. So, heaven can be experienced here, though a mirror darkly, enigmatically, but truly nonetheless. An act of love has always a price (a modern Samaritan story):
George Herbert was a well-known English poet, priest and musician. He was on his way to a music session one evening when he came on a man whose horse had collapsed under the load. Man and horse were in distress and needed help urgently. Herbert was not a healthy or strong man, but he took off his clerical robes and helped the man get his horse back to its feet. He bought some feed for the horse and soon the man and horse were able to resume their journey
Normally Herbert kept himself well, his friends were surprised when he turned up with dirty hands and stained clothes. They expressed surprise and disappointment that he got involved in such a messy task. He replied: The thought of what I have done will be music to my ears at midnight. The omission of it would have caused discord in my conscience. For if I am bound to pray for all in distress, I am sure that I am bound to do all in my power to practice what I pray for. Then, let us tune the instruments.
We want to be popular, to be liked and appreciated. As a consequence, like Jeremiah, we can get discouraged when, like Jesus, we collide with the lack of understanding and even persecution. The disciple is not greater than the teacher. But we rely on the promise that never fails.
The fundamental criterion of a true prophet and apostle is that he is motivated only by one reason, love.
How do we handle rejection by others especially by people whom we consider as friends? Do not let evil defeat you; instead, conquer evil with good (Rom 12:21). Only when, our hearts are pure that we can go beyond the ordinary circumstances of our lives and see God in everything.
Your brother in the sacred hearts of Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
Luis Casasús
General Superior
