Rest a while

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (Jn 15:9 – 17)

How can you be commanded to love? Surely love must be a free response, not an obligation. You can be commanded to obey, but how can you be commanded to love? How could Jesus say, “This is my commandment, that you love one another?”

Meister Eckhart (1260 -1328) threw a clear light on this conundrum. He said, “When I am thirsty, the drink commands me; when I am hungry, the food commands me. And God does the same [when he commands me to love].”

In other words, the command to love is not a command that is laid on us from the outside; rather, it is an inner command, an inner urgency placed in our very being by God – like hunger and thirst; or, you might say, like the urgency that an oak tree has to develop as an oak tree. It is not something alien, it is totally our own, and yet it is totally from God.

Jesus’ command to love contains a critical subordinate clause, “as I have loved you!” What was unique in the way Jesus loved?

No one was excluded: prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors all found a place of welcome at the table. Those with a physical and/or psychological ailment were touched. Those possessed in some way were touched as they were possessed.

Where Jesus stretches us beyond our natural instincts and beyond all self-delusion is in his command to love our enemies, to be warm to those who are cold to us, to be kind to those who are cruel to us, to do good to those who hate us, to excuse those who hurt us, to forgive those who won’t forgive us, and to ultimately love and forgive those who are trying to kill us.

That command, love and forgive your enemies, more than any creedal formula or other moral issue, is the litmus-test for Christian discipleship. We can ardently believe in and defend every item in the creed and fight passionately for justice in all its dimensions, but the real test of whether we are followers of Jesus is the capacity or non-capacity to forgive an enemy, to remain warm and loving towards someone who is not warm and loving to us.

For many, unfortunately, the law to love has become the love of laws!

Jesus said, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine-grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit ( Jn 15: 1 -2)

Having lived surrounded by a vineyard for seven years, I have some understanding of the rhythm of the vine.

When the vine is most beautiful, it is most vulnerable!

Having produced its summer crop of fruit and with a cool change in the autumn climes, the luxuriant green leaves begin to change colour.

The vines change to a multi-coloured vista of reds, browns, burnt orange, and yellow.

The nuisance is that this change in colour says spectacularly, “I am dying.”

Death is so beautifully colourful!

 

The sharp blade of the pruning shears hurries this death.

And what is cut is determined by another!

The reality that I have borne plentiful fruit this season does not mean I will spared from the pruning shear!

The vine gains nurture and nourishment from the soil, filling its berries to ripeness and fullness, only to be cut once. It then spends time colouring itself in the warmth of autumn hues, only to be cut again.

And quite possibly thrown away.

It is just not fair.

Sheep and shepherds feature as a strong metaphor in our Readings for this Sunday.

I recall a time when I was studying in the US and was present at a Sunday Mass in the Diocese of Trenton, NJ.

As luck would have it, the Gospel of the day was the gospel we proclaim today (John 10: 1 – 10).

The homilist was a Scripture scholar from the diocesan seminary. It is a homily I have never forgotten. He began his homily with these words:

“There’s was a practice among shepherds in Israel that existed at the time of Jesus and is still in use, in parts today, that needs to be understood in order to appreciate what Jesus says about himself as the Good Shepherd.

“Sometimes very early on in the life of a lamb, if a shepherd sensed that this particular lamb is going to be a congenital stray and forever be drifting away from the flock, he deliberately breaks its leg so that he, the shepherd has to carry the lamb until its leg is healed.

“By that time, the lamb becomes so attached to the shepherd that it never strays again!”

I have no means of verifying the validity of the shepherd’s practice, however it got me reflecting; maybe there is a deliberately “broken bit” in me that is my conduit into a relationship/attachment with Jesus.

When I reflect on the Gospel stories, I notice the broken people come to Jesus ‘in their brokenness’, and leave healed.

I, through my silly theology, have desperately tried to hide away this “broken bit” to present an acceptable and pleasing face to Jesus.

Will I let Jesus carry me until I am healed?

Today is the World Day of Prayer for Vocations.

For many, this day of prayer encourages prayer for more people to enter religious life and/or priesthood.

“If we pray more and with greater earnestness more will ‘enter’”.

Vocations has never been a numbers game, rather it is a question of attentive listening.

One of the facts that people seem to dismiss from the equation is quite simply, “There are fewer persons to hear the call!”

The average number of people per New Zealand household is 2.7 people, which has remained unchanged since 2006.

I invite you to enlarge the possibility of those for whom we pray.

Let us pray for a listening ear and a generous heart for women and men throughout our world, attentive to the vocational call of the Good Shepherd – a call to the single life, to a life lived in the commitment of married love, to a life lived through the vocation of religious life, to a life lived through the vocation of the ministerial priesthood.

Each of these vocations is of equal value.

One is not more efficacious than the other.

Let each of us hear again the foundational call of Christian women and men through the baptismal grace that names us daughters and sons of God.

Also, have you seen a shepherd work a flock without dogs? Dogs are pretty much essential to a shepherd’s work. It might be advantageous this Vocations Week to pray for sheepdogs as earnestly as we pray for shepherds.

This Sunday’s Gospel introduces us to ghosts! (Lk 24: 35 – 48)

[The disciples] told what had happened on the road, and how Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified and thought that they were seeing a ghost. (Lk 24: 37)

A rustle in the bushes, a creaking floorboard, the curtain blowing at the window on a wind-less night, and the anxiety that follows.

For as long as human beings have been self-aware, it seems they have also been aware of ghosts. The concept of ghosts, and ghost stories, dates far back into human history and has captivated and mystified the human race for generations.

Oresteia, a trilogy of Greek tragedies first performed in 458 BC.

Pliny the Younger the Roman lawyer recounted his famous ghost story around 100AD, proving that these chilling stories have been commonplace for at least two thousand years.

Shakespeare’s treatment of ghosts was used as a key storytelling tool, as can be seen in his revered play, Macbeth and the ghost of Banquo.

Ghosts appear also in Richard III, and of course Hamlet.

Referred to in the stage directions as ‘Ghost’, the ghost appears just three times in the play, acting as a catalyst for Prince Hamlet’s actions.

In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote what is probably the most famous ghost story of all time “A Christmas Carol”, which follows the journey of Ebeneezer Scrooge from miserly money-lender to a kind and loving man.

Told in five chapters, or ‘staves’ as Dickens called them, Scrooge is visited by four spirits on Christmas Eve, each of whom opens his mind to the world around him.