This homily is four months in the making. It contains some
thoughts and reflection from my sabbatical. Since it is now in print form in
this blog, I am not constrained by time, so have developed certain parts a
little further.
Because I kept a journal, I can tell you exactly how it went down.
On September 17th, I received an email blast from Dr. Scott Hahn, a
Catholic Bible scholar who used to be a Protestant minister. He wrote about two
things in the email blast: 1) Holiness; and 2) the question: Do you have a
personal relationship with Jesus?
He wrote: “As a Protestant, I must have asked people that question a
thousand times. And not once did I doubt what the answer should be. If a person
didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus, then they needed a personal
relationship with Jesus. A personal relationship with Jesus, I believed, was
that for which every one of us was made. Then I became Catholic. And I
realized God was calling us to so much more than a personal relationship with
Himself. …God isn’t calling us to a mere relationship. He’s
calling us to union. He’s calling us to be filled with His own life.
He’s calling us to become partakers of His divine nature. That sounds
radical. But it sounds even more radical as we grow in our understanding of the
holiness of God. When Christians use the word “holy,” we usually mean someone
who is good, who is prayerful, charitable, and long-suffering. But God’s
holiness is a consuming fire. It surpasses what our minds can comprehend. And
yet, that’s the holiness we’re called to possess.” (Bold emphasis in
original; italicized emphasis mine)
Pope St.
John Paul II encouraged us to add the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary to our
prayer lives. The first Mystery is all about today’s feast: the Baptism of the Lord
Jesus in the Jordan. As Christians, we imitate Jesus and follow his command to
be baptized. This is when our union with him begins. We are made new as sons
and daughters of God. We receive the life of God, active in us, which we call
grace. St. John Paul II gave us these mysteries because it’s exactly what we
need. We have forgotten the power of baptism. Some people even wait to have
their children baptized as if something better is going to come along. All that
does is decide that the child will not have faith. Nothing better is coming. Union
with God is the best thing. It’s why we were made. And it begins with baptism.
In talking
about union with Jesus, I sometimes use the word “relationship,” but I use it
with caution. We have hundreds of human relationships. But in every one of
them, I’m over here and you’re over there. No human relationship will ever be like
the union that Jesus wants with us: union on a soul-deep level where we partake
in His divine nature. Therefore, this is an important part of the answer to another
question many of us likely hear from our friends: “Why do I feel so much better
when I leave the big box church than when I leave Mass?”
Feel? Is it
about how we feel? Or is it about Jesus whom we know with our intellect? St. Teresa
of Calcutta had a 40-year dry spell. She didn’t feel good about Jesus for
decades. But she knew she received him in the Eucharist every day. Read St.
Paul, who wrote about 2/3 of the New Testament. Did he ever write about the
importance of feeling good? On the contrary: He wrote about the multiple times
he was whipped with 39 lashes, the times he was stoned, shipwrecked, starved,
etc. St. Paul did not feel good, but he knew he had union with Jesus from the
moment Ananias baptized him. He knew it was Jesus he was receiving as he
offered Mass. Then when he did get the chance to stop and pray, did he feel
good in prayer? He said he had concern for all the churches on his heart. Could
he focus or was he distracted? He probably was not feeling good consolations in
prayer.
Let’s not
forget about the related topic of holiness, which I mentioned at the beginning.
At the same time I was reflecting on these things, I was also reading St.
Josemaría Escrivá. He wrote: “There is no
such thing as second-class holiness. Either we put up a constant fight to stay
in the grace of God and imitate Christ, our Model, or we desert in that divine
battle.”
Plus, my
meditation that day from In Conversation with God by Fr. Francis
Fernandez ended with this: “All roads that lead to God have to pass through
prayer and sacrifice.” Moreover, in the Gospel that day, Jesus used a parable
to talk about those who follow quickly with joy and then fall away. Fr. Fernandez
added: “At the moment of truth they succumb because their allegiance to Christ
has been rooted solely in feeling and not in prayer.”
Prayer is
difficult! Are we seeking ourselves, or are we seeking God? St. Augustine pointed
out: “Few look for Jesus for the sake of Jesus.” Will we follow Jesus in prayer,
sacrifice, in His footsteps, even if the path is difficult? The Lord Jesus
calls the pleasures of the world “thorns.” St. Basil the Great points out: Pleasures
don’t seem like thorns at the time, but we end up with bloody hands. The bottom
line is: prayer and mortification bring fruit; focus on feeling good is
sterile.
It is worth
pointing out here in print something I did not take time to expand in the
homily in my desire to keep it short and streamlined. Feelings are gifts from
God and can be quite useful. They are neither good nor bad in themselves but need
to be used appropriately. We just need to be careful not to be misled by our
feelings, or to make decisions based on feelings alone without the use of
intellect. “Mot” is the root of both the words “emotion” and “motivation,” so
we can see they are related. It is possible to have an emotional experience from
a certain type of music, for example, or to be fired up by a motivational
speaker, and think we are having a spiritual experience. It certainly may be a
spiritual experience, but maybe not. And we certainly should not forget what we
know with our intellect.
When it
comes to worshiping God and entering into union with Jesus, we don’t need a
motivational speaker that makes us feel good. And even though we do our best to
praise God in song, our music will never be to the same level as the
entertainment industry. What we do need is a generous yes to share in
the divine nature of the Lord Jesus. We need a real union with Him, which we
know He brings about in the Sacraments of His Church.
So, what do we do now? Love demands that we invite others to the best
thing, which is union with Jesus. I tried it just the other day. I assured a
friend, who is a fallen-away Catholic, that I am praying for his mother, who is declining in health. But I also
revealed that I am praying for his return to Sunday Mass. Much to my delight,
he said it has already been on his mind and he is making plans for his return.
Thank you, Jesus!
