What is the Goal of our Life?
To live with God forever.
Who Gave us Life?
God.
Why?
Because God Loves Us.
What is the purpose of our response?
So that His life may flow into us
without limit.
What are the things of this world?
Gifts from God.
Why are they given?
To know God more easily and make a
return of love more readily.
So what do we choose?
We choose whatever leads to God’s deepening
his life in us.
“[A society such as ours] based on
Darwinian ‘survival of the fittest,’…has serious disadvantages. It
promotes a strong aggressive attitude and the need to win. It can paralyze
the development of the heart, prevent health cooperation among people, and promote rivalry and enmity. It tends to marginalize those who are weak
and even those who reject
individualistic principles and want to live in a society based on truth and justice for all.”
-
Jean Vanier
"Enter by the narrow gate; for
the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who
enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to
eternal life, and those who find it are few . . . Not everyone who says to me,
'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my
Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we
not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty
works in your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you”
- Matthew 7:14-15, 21-23
“And I would have
thee known that just as every imperfection and perfection is acquired from Me,
so is it manifested by means of the neighbor.
And simple souls, who often love creatures with spiritual love, know
this well, for, if they have receive My love sincerely without any
self-regarding considerations, they satisfy the thirst of their love for their
neighbor equally sincerely. If a man
carry away the vessel which he has filled at the fountain and then drink of it,
the vessel become empty, but if he keep his vessel standing in the fountain,
while he drinks, is always remains full.
So the love of the neighbor, whether spiritual or temporal, should be
drunk in Me, [that the vessel of love shall always be full] without any
self-regarding considerations.
-St. Catherine of
Sienna
“And some one said to him, "Lord,
will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, "Strive to
enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not
be able. When the householder has risen up and shut the door, you will begin to
stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us." He
will answer you, ‘I do not know where you have come from’.”
- Luke. 13:23-25.
Whenever questions of “social justice” are brought up, one’s
attention frequently turns to the famous passage from the Gospel of Matthew – The
Judgment of the Nations. Here is
Christ’s discussion of the Eschaton – the day of the Lord. Eschatology is the perspective of life viewed
from eternity, the perspective from which all men must stand before the throne
of God.
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the
angels with him, he will sit upon his
glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a
shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
He will place the sheep on
his right and the goats on his left.
Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come,
you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a
stranger and you welcomed me, naked
and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when
did we see you hungry and feed you,
or thirsty and give you drink? When did
we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked
and clothe you? When did we see you ill
or in prison, and visit you?’ And the king will
say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these
least brothers of
mine, you did for me.’
Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from
me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared
for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, a
stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you
gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.’
Then they will answer and say, ‘Lord, when did we see
you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or
naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?’ He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not
do for one of these least ones, you did not do for
me.’
Matthew 25: 31-46.
This passage from Matthew’s Gospel has become very
familiar over the years, like many well-known passages of Scripture. Often, this Gospel passage is compared with a
famous story from the Gospel according to St. Luke, The Parable of the Good
Samaritan.
There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said,
“Teacher, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love
the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your
mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He
replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.”
But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, “And who is
my neighbor?”
Jesus replied, “A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he
passed by on the opposite side. Likewise
a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came
upon him was moved with compassion at the sight.
He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own
animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to
the innkeeper with the instruction, ‘Take
care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.’
Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’
victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him,
“Go and do likewise.”
Luke 10: 25-37
We’ve heard this before, haven’t we? How quickly, when we hear these passages, do
we begin to tune out? We’ve heard it
before, we know what this is and we know where it’s going. Soon the meaning is lost amidst repetition
and familiar sentiments. How many times
have we heard, “What you have done to the
least of these you have done to me”?
How many times have we heard the Parable of the Good Samaritan? We have heard these stories, and we will hear
them again and again. We file away the
message amidst the many other things we know we’re supposed to do. After all, we get it, God wants us to take
care of the poor and the needy, the sick and the suffering, the widow and the
orphan. Who doesn’t know that by
now? And yet, the teaching has often lost
its force, its sense of urgency, its sense of being an imperative, a command. Instead, it has become another thing our
“to-do list” that is often de-prioritized in order to accommodate whatever is
in front of us. We will help the poor
when we are able, we will help our neighbor when it’s convenient, when we’re
not too busy. Yet, Father Michel Quoist
reminds us, amidst our business, that…
If, where the Father has placed
us, we do not fight with all our strength against the world in disorder, we are not real
Christians. We do not love God. For he said it through St. John: “If he does not love the
brother whom he has seen, it cannot be that he loves God whom he has no not seen” (I John 4: 20); and,
“My children, love must not be a matter of words or talk; it must be genuine, and show itself in
action” (I John 3: 18). But it isn’t simply
improving the look of a man’s face that a Christian can bring peace
to his conscience; it is by finding and
tackling all the social and moral disorders which have produced that face.
The poor will judge us.”
The Spirit consistently reminds us of the danger of thinking we have all the time in the world. Any day could be our last. Accidents and Tragedies can happen. We may read Matthew Chapter 25 in anticipation of our judgment that may come at any time, and everyone will be asked to give an account for his/her actions. The fear of hell may persuade many to re-prioritize their lives to help the poor, but I am reminded of a passage from the 1st Letter of Saint John. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.” - 1st John Chapter 4:18-19
Americans often have a very superficial understanding of
Christianity, and a very shallow understanding of concepts like Heaven and
Hell. Heaven is often understood in the
classic Roman/pagan sense, the good place where the good people go to be
re-united with their family and friends for food and fun. Hell is the place for the bad people, the
worst people, where the murderers, rapists and child-molesters finally get
what’s REALLY coming to em’.
When we reduce Christianity to this consequentialist
understanding, it becomes little more than a cosmic game, and we adopt an
attitude towards our religious life that conforms to the rules of a game. The attitude could be best described thus:
“What’s the least I have to do in
order to get to heaven, and what’s the MOST
I can get away with without going to
hell? Yet what is necessary (Love), and
real relationship with Jesus Christ – does not (and cannot) fit within this framework.
A framework, (I might add) that is still
trapped within selfishness.
The question of heaven or hell is not a merely matter of
punishment and reward (which can place one’s gaze and energies entirely on the
self). Rather, relationship with Christ
is meant to open us up to an Other, and
not only for the sake of how it will affect oneself later. Clearly put, there is no authentic Christian
morality without solidarity with one’s fellow human beings, and only in the
present, right now (which has an eternal significance) can we live the Gospel
in reality. The eternal stands present
at every moment, touches every moment. Without
this mystical union between the present and the eternal reality, human freedom
would lack all seriousness. Thus we must
be brought to the eschatological realism (the presence of eternity) that
defines the current moment. Eternity
touching the present also points to an ever present Christ who stands before us
as neighbor, judge, and Savior.
Hans Urs Von Balthasar forcefully reminds us, “It is
therefore indispensable that every individual Christian be confronted, in the
greatest seriousness, with the possibility of his becoming lost.”[1] Our salvation must not be taken for granted,
(lest we in our ingratitude forfeit the gift) but worked out, as St Paul
reminds us, with “fear and trembling” (Phil 2:12). Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) famously
writes:
"For the Saint, ‘Hell’ is
not so much a threat to be hurled at other people but a challenge to oneself. It is a challenge to suffer in
the dark night of faith, to experience communion
with Christ in solidarity with his descent into the Night. . . . Hell is so
real that it reaches right into the
existence of the saints. Hope can take it on, only if one shares in the suffering of Hell's night by
the side of the one who came to transform our night by his suffering. Here hope does not emerge from the
neutral logic of a system. . . . It
must place its petition into the hands of its Lord and leave it there[2].
What is Heaven? Simply put, heaven is the indescribable bliss
of union with God. It is to become
totally immersed in God yet without losing one’s individuality. In God, the human person is totally affirmed
as Other, but totally consumed in love as union. The image of God in marriage, that two become
one flesh, remains the primary theological image for heaven, as two persons now
share in one life. Hell, simply put, is
separation from God. The infinite
suffering of hell (far worse than any descriptions of sulfur and flames) is
eternal separation from the greatest good – the total loss of love. Regardless of any artistic and ironic
tortures the poet Dante might imagine, the words “eternal punishment” should be
more than enough to give pause to any reasonable man.
The universal call to holiness is
that we should know, love and serve God.
This calling is meant to enrich this life and lead us into the fullness
of the next. This establishes our focus and
attention on our neighbor – who stands in the place of God for us to love and
serve.
Social justice, while it should
consider the dignity of the other,
should be desirable now not only for the sake of the other, but for our own
sake, and not just in our sense of the future.
The eschatological viewpoint touches us right now, in this moment, in every moment. With the service we render to our fellow
human beings, we are opting for (or against) union with God in the present
moment. “What you have done to the least
of these you have done to me” (Mat 25) or “Saul,
Saul, why do you persecute ME?” (Acts 9:4).
The Christian life proposes not only
happiness in the hereafter, but a greater fulfillment in this present age. It shockingly proposes that union with
Christ, even in the lowliest of service, even in suffering, is a reward of joy
that outstrips all possible human pleasure.
In service to our fellow man, especially the lowest of the low, we can
experience an intimacy with Christ that is nothing short of the manifestation
of Divine Glory. It is grace through
matter, sacramental in essence, the
richness of faith fully alive. When
Jesus says, “Do this and you will live” – he is not only speaking of life as an
avoidance of punishment, but pointing us towards a greater fullness of life and
the actualization of our humanity.
Saint Catherine of Sienna once
dictated the Lord speaking to her thus:
I require that you should love Me with the same love with
which I love you. This indeed you cannot do, because I loved you without
being loved. All the love which you have
for Me you owe to Me, so that
it is not of grace that you love me, but because you ought to do so.
While I love you of grace, and not because I owe you My love. Therefore to Me, in person, you cannot repay the love which I require of you,
but I have placed you in the midst
of your fellows, that you may do to them that which you cannot do to Me, that
is to say, that you may love
your neighbor of free grace, without expecting any return from him, and what you do to him, I count as done to
Me[3].
We may see in this passage a heavy
obligation placed upon us. But if we
look at it in the eyes of love, the eyes of faith, we see a wondrous and
glorious opportunity. We are given the chance
to love our Lord in the same manner as which he loves us. We are given the opportunity to offer ourselves
in the greatest depth, in the most complete of ways. This is the way of love, the “narrow door”
(Lk 13:24), the way of the cross – of complete self-gift.
Man finds his dignity in
service. It is not only “in giving that
we receive” (St. Francis) but in giving
that we are received. The human
heart, which longs for communion, longs for an other to respond – finds itself always searching
towards a presence that may provide the meaning for its search. It is in
service that we see the face of God, and how divine that dwells within us may
be seen. The heart longs not for theories
but for truth. The heart seeks love not
in the abstract, but in the concrete.
Not in the ethereal, but in the tangible. Not in the hypothesis, but in the invitation
and proposal of a person standing before us.
To say we belong to Christ, is
essentially to say also that we belong to the Church. This is not a belonging that translates to slavery
or ownership. It is the belonging Koinonea,
a familial intimacy which says – “we are
meant to journey towards happiness together, to know, love and serve one
another each according to his gifts, with each his Beloved and indispensable
place. We are all sons and daughters of
the King, meant to serve and in turn to be served”.
Our neighbor is the gift through
which we may tangibly encounter God. We
encounter God when someone else takes our humanity (our need, our heart)
seriously, and we discover our own divine design (our God given identity) when
we or someone else takes our own humanity seriously. Hence, it is an imperative that we take our humanity seriously right now,
that we take our happiness seriously now, so that we may experience the fullness
of Christ now, not only in this age but eternal life in the age to come. Hell is the continuation of our choice for isolation. Heaven is the continuation and fulfillment of
our relationship with Christ.
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