Handed Over

“The Son of Man is going to be handed over into the power of men.” Handed over! On one level, on the surface, Jesus was handed over to his enemies by Judas. But on a deeper level, for love of us, with a complete yielding to the Father’s redeeming purpose – he unreservedly handed himself over.

Jesus, we are told, set his face resolutely toward Jerusalem and all that awaited him there. He could say: “Nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down of my own accord.”  

It was a moving forward in love, a letting go totally into the hands of God,  allowing his life fall like a grain of wheat into the dark earth.  It was with such absolute trust that Jesus went to the Cross and, with such abandonment to the Father, he handed over his life for us.    

And what of us, as the Lord’s disciples? St Francis so often refers to the Scripture: “Christ suffered for you leaving you an example that you might follow in his footprints.” And it is, above all, this interior disposition of trusting surrender that is the heart of Christ’s example we are called to follow.

The saints constantly teach us this message of handing over all our lives, especially the inevitable, unavoidable sufferings and struggles and trials we face. St Ignatius prayed: “Take, Lord, receive... all is yours. Dispose of it wholly according to your will.” John Newton, slave-trader turned servant of the Gospel, wrote in a time of great trial: “It is sufficient that the Lord knows how to dispose of me, and that he can and will do what is best. To him I entrust myself for I trust that his will and my true interests are inseparable. To his name be the glory!”

The saints know that in the end the Lord asks for everything so that we might receive everything. There has to be an immense space for the gift of God!

Something to hold in our hearts as we approach the week we call Holy.

Not Withholding Ourselves

Lent is a time to take a deep look are our lives in the light of Christ's love. People make a special effort to celebrate his compassion in Confession. 

But to be honest, many do not find this easy to do.

Elizabeth O'Connor suggests a way to approach the sacrament in a more positive way.

"When our repentance is real and not a whip, it has the possibility of giving us a whole new attitude. Actually, Confession is made for the revealing of our light - gifts of love, faith and creativity.

Understanding this, however, will not always make the resistance to Confession less. If we exercise love, we become vulnerable. If we confess our gifts, we are apt to be asked to use them.

In the end, the sin we must all come to look at is the sin of withholding ourselves. This is the sin that keeps us beggars in life."

SOUR-FACED SAINTS

St Teresa of Avila rightly prayed: "God save us from sour-faced saints." St Francis constantly emphasised opening ourselves to " the joy of salvation". They got it right - the goal of the Gospel is that we share in God's own joy. "The joy of the Lord is our strength."

Cardinal Dolan of New York, speaking recently of his time in Rome, said: "When I was a new seminarian at the North American College in Rome, all the first-year men from all the Roman theological universities were invited to a Mass at St. Peter’s with the Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal John Wright, as celebrant and homilist. We thought he would give us a cerebral homily.  But he began by asking, 'Seminarians:  do me and the Church a big favour. When you walk the streets of Rome, smile!' The witness to Christ must be a person of joy. 'Joy is the infallible sign of God’s presence,' claims Leon Bloy."

Even at this stage of our Lent journey, a new resolution - in simplicity of heart I will open myself to the gift of God's joy.

Expensive People!

Are you an "expensive person"?

A quote from Caryll Houselander provides food for thought during Lent or any other time!

"The expensive people are those who, because they are not simple, make complicated demands - people to whom we cannot respond spontaneously and simply, without anxiety. They need not be abnormal to exact these complicated responses; it is enough that they should be untruthful or touchy or hypersensitive or that they have an exaggerated idea of their own importance or that they have a pose - one which may have become second nature but is not what they really are.

With all such people we are bound to experience a little hitch in our response. In time, our relationship with them becomes unreal.

If we have to consider every word or act in their company, in case it hurts their feelings or offends their dignity, or to act up to them in order to support their pose, we become strained by their society. They are costing us dearly in psychological energy."

NO CONDEMNATION

Sometime ago a friend gave me a book on Christian spirituality entitled: Everybody’s Normal Till You Get to Know Them. How true it is! Each of us has a history, has quirks and inconsistencies, faults and failings; each of us carries baggage.

There are times when we can be painfully aware of that baggage. Then the danger is that we hear the Word of God as condemnation, harshly telling us what we are not… rather than revealing what we can be, and as an invitation to respond more deeply to God’s liberating love.

God’s Word confronts and challenges me but never condemns me – there is always the promise of new beginnings. With Christ’s goodness every moment can be a fresh start.

Love draws, grace invites, mercy attracts…..

It is the knowledge that I am so loved and capable of much greater goodness that creates the desire in me to change. My own experience is that the more I believe in my inner storehouse of goodness, the more I want to become truly good.

Whatever spiritual practises you have committed yourself to this Lent, may they help heal the wounds shame and self-rejection inflict. 

May these days of grace open you more joyfully to a love no betrayal can destroy.

Working together with God

I notice that in my last few blogs I have reflected on the importance of personal discipline in the spiritual journey. This emphasis on the importance of our decisions and habits is not meant to down play the complete primacy of God’s action. The Spirit of God brings about our transformation but we are to work together with grace. At every step God relies on our consent and co-operation. All spiritual growth is a collaborative effort between the individual and the Holy Spirit.

Scripture tells us: “Continue to work out your salvation in fear and trembling, for it is God who, for His own generous purpose, works in you both the desire and the power to act” (Philippians 2:12,13).

So we are clearly told that there are two definite  parts to spiritual growth. The “working in” is God’s role; deep within each of us the Holy Spirit unceasingly draws us to deeper love and freedom. It is the grace of God that gives us both the desire and the strength for good.

But the “working out” is our responsibility; we co-operate with grace and drawing on the divine energy to make the choices that reveal themselves in Christ-like behaviour, in word and deed. God has given us a new life by the gift of the indwelling Spirit. It is now our responsibility to develop this life “in fear and trembling” – that is, take our spiritual growth seriously. 

There are still several weeks left on our Lenten journey...  time to begin again if we have slackened off!

Our Daily Choices

Gregory of Nyssa, writing of the power of our daily choices to form us into the persons we become, states: "We are, in a sense, our own parents.”  Fr Aelfred Squire comments on this line: “There are indeed few who will not recognise the justice of believing that, when allowance is made for the obscurities in which we have to work out our salvation, we never become what in fact we do become, unless deep down in ourselves, we have chosen and desired it, and gone on doing so for a lifetime... From the cradle to the grave we are, either consciously or unconsciously, involved in activity, whether that activity is externally manifested or not. It is in our activity that we are all the time becoming what, at any given moment, we are.”

“No one makes a fool of God! A person reaps only what he sows.” (Galatians 6:7). If that is the case, it is an indispensable practice to reflect regularly on what I am sowing day by day. It is a sobering but true thought that I am as close to God as I choose to be. God’s love for us does not waver. But the extent to which that love enters and impacts on our lives depends on our free choices. Respecting the liberty He gave us the gracious Lover does not force His love upon us.

I am constantly making choices as I live my life  - choosing how I spend my time and money, how I relate to people, choosing to pray or not, to forgive or not,  to be generous or not, etc, etc. Often these choices are made without much reflection.  So during this time of Lent I am especially asked to consider the power of these personal choices to form the person I am becoming.  It is true - in a very real sense I am my own parent!