As I’ve mentioned before, the Christian life is about learning to form our desires. The season of Advent emphasizes this even more, teaching us how to desire rightly. Yes, we need to learn to yearn. We need to learn to desire.
As we approach Christmas, the figures of John the Baptist and others fade into the background, and the figure of Mary comes forward. The readings are especially chosen to prepare us for the ultimate object of our desire: Christ incarnate. Mary, in her obedience to the will of God, ushers us into this great mystery.
In our times, obedience is often misunderstood or dismissed. I think this is because weāve been spoon-fed a lie for the past 50 years. Itās a lie we hear in the media, in commercials, and especially in commencement speeches at graduations. The lie is this: Your life is all about you.
Think about the last commencement speech you heard. It probably said something like, āYour life is about finding your passion, your career, the right partner, the perfect family, and building wealth.ā If part of us resonates with this idea, itās because we are products of our culture. But make no mistake: in the Christian life, your life is not about you. Itās about something far greater and more beautiful than we can imagineāwhat we call the will of God, the Word of God taking flesh in our lives.
I donāt know about you, but Iāve often found my own will insufficient. I think I know what I want, but when I finally acquire or accomplish it, it doesnāt satisfy. Our will can be deceptive, leading us down paths shaped by the ego. True peace does not come from following our own will, but from aligning our will to something greater: Godās will, which is holier, more beautiful, and transcendent.
Danteās Divine Comedy beautifully illustrates this truth. As he journeys through hell, purgatory, and heaven, he explores the nature of desire and its ultimate fulfillment. In the third canto of paradise, Dante enters the Heaven of the Moon, where he meets a soul named Picarda Donati. She was a nun forced to leave her convent and marry against her will. Despite this, Picarda inhabits the lowest circle of heaven, a place of perfect peace. Dante asks her if she longs for a higher place in heaven, given her virtue. Picarda responds with a profound truth: āIn His will is our peace.ā
Paradiso, Canto III: Dante and Beatrice speak to Piccarda and Constance of Sicily, fresco by Philipp Veit
She explains that all souls in paradise are perfectly content, regardless of their position in the celestial hierarchy, because their wills are fully united with Godās will. This is the example that Mary gives us. She aligns her will so perfectly with Godās that she conceives His Word in her womb.
But how do we hear Godās will when the noise of our ego and the world around us is so loud? The lie that life is all about us makes us believe that if we are unhappy, we are to blame. It burdens us with unbearable pressure to achieve, to succeed, to “hack” life. Yet the Christian life teaches us that peace is not found in our own plans but in aligning with the will of our Father in heaven.
You might say, āFather, I donāt have the capacity to hear Godās will. Iām not holy enough or educated enough. I havenāt read Scripture cover to cover.ā But thatās not how it works. Jesus says in the Gospel, āMy sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.ā He doesnāt say, āMy educated sheepā or āMy perfect sheep.ā At your baptism, you were given the capacity to hear the voice of your Heavenly Father. You became His child and received the ability to call Him āAbba.ā
Of course, we need to cultivate this ability, just as Mary did. We need to let go of the noise and distractions of life. We need to create silence, the āwombā in which Godās Word can be conceived within us. The word āobedienceā comes from the Latin ob-audiens, meaning āto listen.ā Obeying Godās will is not about checking boxes or merely complying with rules. Itās about listening deeply to a will that is holier and more beautiful than ours.
So I ask you: What is one step you can take to align your will to Godās this Advent? What is one thing you can do to create silence, to quiet the noise of anxiety, suffering, or even overwhelming joy? What can be your fiatāyour āMay it be done to me according to Your wordāāin these final days before Christmas?
Let us pray for the wisdom Mary conceived in her heart. Let us pray for the silence to listen to a will that is holier than ours. And let us find our peace in Godās will.
In His will is our peace.
addicted to feelings
Itās common knowledge that we live in a timeāin a societyāof immediate gratification. We want our Google searches to show up in less than half a second. We want our Uber rides and Amazon deliveries to arrive right on time. We want the movie to start streaming the instant we hit the play button. This is the nature of the world we live ināa society that values immediacy above all else. And in a way, that same impatience has found a home in our hearts.
But the season of Advent, particularly this Gaudete Sunday, stands in direct opposition to this culture. We need to learn to yearn. Advent is about learning to desireāto truly yearn. Itās a slow, deliberate season, teaching us to wait and anticipate. Thatās why we light one candle each week, not all at once. The Church changes her liturgical colors. We sing different songs. The rites and prayers change. The decor shifts. And in many of our homes, we start our own traditionsālike setting up the Advent wreath at the dinner table or placing the Nativity scene.
If you have the tradition of a little Nativity scene, I invite you to turn that space into a place of prayer: a place where you read Scripture, meditate, and develop a space to desire. Yes, we need to learn to desireāall of us. And today, the Holy Liturgy points us toward Christian joy as the object of our desire.
We see this in the readings. Take Zephaniah in the first reading:
He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will renew you in his love. He will sing joyfully because of you.
Pause for a moment and think about that. God, singing joyfully because of you. Can you picture it? Godāthe Creator of the universeāsinging out of joy over you. The text continues:
He will sing joyfully because of you, as one sings at festivals.
The second reading from Paul reinforces this theme:
Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again, rejoice.
Paulās words almost sound like a commandment: Rejoice. He doesnāt say, āRejoice when you feel like it,ā or āRejoice when your life is going well.ā Noāhe says, Rejoice. Always. And he continues:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.
Joy has nothing to do with your feelings
But hereās the question we might ask:
āPaul, how can you command us to rejoice? I donāt feel joy in my life. Iām financially strained. Iām struggling with my health. I just lost a loved one. Iām unhappy with my work. How can I rejoice?ā
In a culture that is “addicted” to feelings, we might struggle to understand how Paul can say this. But here’s an answer: Christian joy is not rooted in feelings. Itās not tied to fleeting circumstances. Christian joy is a choice. Itās a choice we make based on where we focus our desire. If my desires are all about meāmy wants, my frustrations, my circumstancesāthen yes, I will find plenty of reasons for dissatisfaction and hopelessness.
But if the object of my desire rises above myselfāif I focus on God, who is faithful, loving, and nearāthen joy becomes possible. Joy becomes a choice that transcends feelings.
Hereās an example. For three weeks now, Iāve been craving a Belgian waffle. Not just any waffleāa nice, crispy, golden-brown waffle, tender and smushy on the inside. Iāve been imagining the butter oozing over the top, the drizzle of honey, a sprinkle of powdered sugar, maybe some blueberries and crushed walnuts.
What just happened in your spirit as I described that waffle? You started to imagine it. You started to desire it. Maybe you even started salivating. And all I did was describe it for 20 seconds.
Thatās what Advent is about.
What we contemplate becomes what we desire.
Yet so often, what do we contemplate? Ourselves. Our disappointments, our frustrations, our wants. Paul is telling us: Stop looking at yourself. Fix your eyes on something greater. If you want to rejoice always, the object of your contemplation must be greater than you.
A spiritual author says it this way:
What you are in love withāwhat seizes your imaginationāwill affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love. Stay in love. And it will decide everything. (Arrupe)
For the Christian, joy is the result of being in love with God Himself. That is the object of our hope and our desire.
Joy has nothing to do with your circumstances
But maybe youāre still thinking, āI have no causes for joy.ā If we believe we are victims of our circumstances and continually contemplate that, we will become trapped in that belief.
Let me finish with a quote from Father Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who spent years in the brutal Lubyanka concentration camp during World War II. His friends were killed. He endured spiritual, psychological, and physical suffering. Yet in his memoir He Leadeth Me, he writes:
This simple truth that the sole purpose of man’s life on earth is to do the will of God contains in it riches and resources enough for a lifetime. Once you have learned to live with it uppermost in mind, to see each day and each day’s activities in its light, the will of God becomes more than a source of eternal salvation. It becomes, listen to this, a source of joy and happiness here on earth. (coming from a man who was in a concentration camp).
The notion that the human will, united with the divine will, can play a part in Christ’s work of redeeming all mankind is overpowering. I had continuously to learn to accept God’s will, not as I wished it to be, not as it might have been, but exactly as it was unfolding at the moment. So I learned by trial and error that if I wanted to preserve my interior peace and joy, I had to have constant recourse to prayer, to the eyes of faith, to a humility that could make me aware of how little my own efforts meant and how dependent I was upon God’s grace, even for prayer and faith itself.
Once you have learned to live with it uppermost in mindāto see each day and each dayās activities in its lightāthe will of God becomes more than a source of eternal salvation. It becomes a source of joy and happiness here on earth.
Father Ciszekās life teaches us that Christian joy focuses beyond our circumstances. Even in a concentration camp, he found joy by uniting his will with Godās. He learned to accept Godās will exactly as it was unfolding in the moment.
And so, this Advent, we pray for two gifts:
The gift of true Christian joy, which frees us from being victims of our circumstances, the joy that comes from obeying a will more beautiful and perfect than our own, the will of the Father in Heaven.
The gift of spiritual freedom, so that the object of our desire may always be Godāthe one who comes to your heart.
Desire in the Life of the Christian
Young Catholic Professionals, San Antonio
Advent Retreat
Reflection
Video
Listening to the reflection, when the time comes, watch This video and come back
Recommended Spiritual Reading for Advent
Abandonment to Divine Providence (or Sacrament of the Present Moment), Jean-Pierre de Caussade, transl. John Beevers, Link
Broken Gods: Hope, Healing, and the Seven Longings of the Human Heart, Dr. Greg K. Popcak Ph.D., Link
So, is desire a defect to be corrected? In the face of its limitlessness, its excess, the fact that it never lets us be, it seems that from the ancient Greeks onwards, the one strategy employed has been to diminish it. But this more or less fierce struggle to confine it within acceptable limits is the most evident confirmation of its structural boundlessness, of its disturbing exorbitance. The failure of all attempts to bridle desire by imposing limits and rules shows just how irreducible it is; it demonstrates that deep down in our being, the Augustinian cor inquietum lives on.
C.S. Lewis had Screwtape articulate the concept that āthe deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting-point, with which the enemy [God] has furnished him. To get him away from those is therefore always a point gained; even in things indifferent it is always desirable to substitute the standards of the World, or convention, or fashion, for a humanās own real likings and dislikings.ā This is the diabolical tactic: to distance us fromĀ our deepest impulses, from the desires that constitute us, distracting us.
– Radiance in Your Eyes
“What is it you wantāthose of you seeking perfection?Ā Give your desires free reign, setting absolutely no limits, no boundaries to them. Listen to me: let your hearts demand the infinite, for I can tell you how to fill them. There is never one moment in which I cannot show you how to find whatever you can desire. The present moment is always overflowing with immeasurable riches, far more than you are able to hold. Your faith will measure it out to you:Ā as you believe, so you will receive. Love, too, is also a measure.Ā The more you love the more you will want and the more you will get. Every moment the will of God is stretched out before us like a vast ocean which the desires of our hearts can never empty, but more and more of it will be ours as our souls grow in faith, in trust and in love. The entire universe cannot fill and sustain our hearts, for they are greater than all apart from God” (41).Ā Ā Ā
– Abandonment to Divine Providence
But is this the case? Did Christianity really destroy eros? Let us take a look at the pre- Christian world. The Greeksānot unlike other culturesāconsidered erosĀ principally as a kind of intoxication, the overpowering of reason by a ādivine madnessā which tears man away from his finite existence and enables him, in the very process of being overwhelmed by divine power, to experience supreme happiness. [ā¦]Ā In the religions, this attitude found expression in fertility cults, part of which was the āsacredā prostitution which flourished in many temples.Ā ErosĀ was thus celebrated as divine power, as fellowship with the Divine.
The Old Testament firmly opposed this form of religion, which represents a powerful temptation against monotheistic faith, combating it as a perversion of religiosity. But it in no way rejectedĀ erosĀ as such; rather, it declared war on a warped and destructive form of it, because this counterfeit divinization ofĀ erosĀ actually strips it of its dignity and dehumanizes it. Indeed, the prostitutes in the temple, who had to bestow this divine intoxication, were not treated as human beings and persons, but simply used as a means of arousing ādivine madnessā: far from being goddesses, they were human persons being exploited. An intoxicated and undisciplinedĀ eros, then, is not an ascent in āecstasyā towards the Divine, but a fall, a degradation of man. Evidently,Ā erosĀ needs to be disciplined and purified if it is to provide not just fleeting pleasure, but a certain foretaste of the pinnacle of our existence, of that beatitude for which our whole being yearns.
– Deus CĆ”ritas Est
Ā
the newness of seasons
As I reflected on the time I have been assigned to St Peter’s and Our Lady of grace, I couldn’t help but feel a little melancholy. Time goes by so quickly! It slips like water through our fingers. Last week we celebrated Thanksgiving; in just four more weeks weāll be celebrating Christmas, then New Yearās day, then St Valentineās Day, then Mother’sā Day, then Fourth of July, and then Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all over again. I remember when I was six years old I would see someone in their thirties and be struck but how “grown-up” they were, even old. Now I have caught up with those ancient thirty somethings I used to observe. Itās all a matter of passing time.
The Liturgy over these past Sundays has been instilling in us a sense of the urgency of conversion, for time is running out. However itās not biological time that the Liturgy references but rather the time required for conversion. We only really have the present moment for conversion. On recent Sundays weāve been hearing the words “The kingdom of God is near,” and apocalyptic readings, stories about the end of times. Today we hear, in the words of Jesus Christ that, “At an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come” (Mt 24:44). It is with this sense of urgency that we need to convert ourselves, to submit ourselves to the grace of God and allow conversion to occur.
We must be prepared. In the first reading we hear a call to action: “Come, let us climb to the Lordās mountain to the house of the God of Jacob” (Mic 4:2). Paul calls upon this same sense of urgency in the Second Reading: “It is the hour now for you to awake from sleep. For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed; the night is advanced the day is at hand. Let us then throw off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light… Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Rm 13:11-14).
Technology is a marvelous thing. If we donāt know something, all we have to do is Google it and in 0.32 seconds we can get an answer. The problem is that this habituates us to always expect an immediate response to what we need. When we live our lives with the belief that we should be able to find whatever we are seeking in a matter of milliseconds, then we can begin to poison our spiritual lives with this attitude. We think, OK, Advent has started so now Iām going to pray more and harder. We place ourselves in the silence of prayer for a few seconds andā¦ Nothing happens. We canāt hear God and so we panic: Heās not speaking to me! I canāt do this. Iām not cut out for this. We start finding excuses. We forget that our spiritual life is exactly that, a spiritual life, and not a mechanical quest.
In the season of Advent, when we we start making resolutions to deepen our spiritual life and to turn our gaze back to Christ, let us remember that it is a season, a recurring ātimeā with its own qualities that must be approached with a sense of newness. Trees are not bored by living through the same seasons every year. Sometimes it could feel like that’s what it is: the same time, the same truths of our faith, over and over again, year after year. Nothing changes! We exclaim. But we would be wrong. Going back to the example of the tree, every year, at the same season, what changes is the tree itself. This year the tree has more leaves and deeper roots, maybe the tree even lost a branch to a storm, or fought off a plague. It is the same tree and yet it is not the same tree; Ā It is renewed. So, yes, seasons donāt change. Advent does not change. The truths of our faith do not change. But we do, and we come renewed to the season of Advent to be reminded of one truth: That the God we believe in is a God who loves us. The God we believe in takes the initiative to look for us, so much so that he became one of us and lived among us.
Advent is a season of preparation. Maybe you have also lost a branch this year; perhaps your marriage, your health, your work and finances have taken a hit. This is a season to come into your center and remember that your life has purpose – and even those things that plague us can bring us closer to it; to remember that Someone seeks you relentlessly with mercy; and that Someone is asking to be received. In this vein, I would like to suggest, guided by St. Paul, two reflections to begin this season of Advent.
Firstly, be awake! Truly wake up to your spiritual life; examine your beliefs, your attitudes, your interests, and your way of living, knowing that some of them are not in accordance with the way of Christ and His Gospel. We all need conversion; conversion is a matter of a lifetime. Paul reminds us of this when he tell us not focus on the pleasures of this life too much, but to focus on Christ, to put on Christ.
Secondly, “Throw off the works of darkness and put on our Lord Christ.” There is no secret therapy, or a magic pill, that will resolve every personal, social, psychological or family issue that we face. But if we strive to put on Christ, to stay close to prayer, and to His Word and Sacraments, this will give us a constant sense of newness of faith, of life. To live our lives knowing that our God is a God of love, and that nothing goes unnoticed under his gaze, brings us true comfort, more comfort than anything else can bring us in this world. The Psalm suggests the spirit of how we can approach conversion and greet life with this sense of freshness, like the tree in a new season: it is through joy. Our conversion is a joyous conversion; It is not dull, grey way of life. Our conversion is full of life because Christ himself is life.
Mary can we be a great source of guidance to us in this time. She herself had to prepare to receive Christ Jesus, the Word made flesh. She spent time nurturing the word of God, pondering it in her heart, and developing her prayer life. She can show us how to prepare our souls to receive our Lord.
I leave you with the words of the poet T.S. Eliot, and his reflection on how we come to see the familiar with a fresh gaze:
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
The Gospel last week presented us with the challenge to forgive, admonish, and reach out to those who have sinned against us.
Today, the holy liturgy follows the theme on anger and resentment and the importance of forgiving injustice. The first reading
says, “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.” Instead of focusing on the importance of forgiveness and letting go of anger, I would like pivot to what seems to be the root of anger in our times. One of the roots, at least, is politics.
The word of God is meant to comfort the afflicted, but also discomfort the comfortable. I am not sharing my personal view but rather, official Church teaching, and it forms a part of the body of documents of social justice that the Church has been preaching for literally hundreds of years.
“The Church should not be political!”
We have heard this phrase, and there is some truth to that, if political means choosing one party and promoting one party, one candidate over the others. In that sense, the Church has no interest in being political. But if we define being political as examining the policies that parties embrace and the ideologies that drive them, then the Church is deeply political in standing for the gospel of her Founder, especially when it comes to oppression and suppression of human dignity.
So, to the phrase “the Church should not be political”, we can say that
In the coming weeks, we as American Catholic Christians are blessed with the grave moral responsibility to exercise our vote in good conscience. I would like to offer some words of reflection to guide our prayer and discernment.
Sometimes I imagine myself living in early 20th century Germany. Knowing that all the great dictatorships of the last century arrived to power via democracy – they were voted into power ā for whom would I have voted? Would I have voted for the smooth-talking dictator? Maybe, living in financially-depressed and decimated Germany after WWI, I would have listened to the commanding man who promised a solid and prosperous future for my family and me.
Would I have continued to vote for him when his party amended its platform and pushed its ideology a little further?
And then a little furtherā¦?
And a little furtherā¦until it was preaching hatred against one group and making my conscience squirm? At what point would I have decided that the party and its platform reached a position that was no longer tolerable in my conscience?
There is no one candidate or one political party that completely aligns with Church teaching in every sense. Even if there were, the Church would have no interest in officially backing one candidate over another. The Church has interest not in candidates, but in policies. The Church’s job is to ask:
What policies do you promote?
How do you protect human dignity?
I would like to offer some reflections on popular ideologies taking hold in our country, in our times, in our world. Many of you have experienced the rise and fall of communism. Even today, in countries like Cuba, Venezuela, and China, Marxist socialism started with ideals to eradicate poverty, to eliminate any form of social division and social oppression.
Good goals, perhaps.
But the Church condemned Marxist socialism based on how it seeks to implement “freedom”. One of the ways Marxist socialism is achieved is complete uniformity:
Eliminate all those things that divide the people.
Religion divides the peopleĀ ā eliminate religion.
Social class divides peopleĀ ā eliminate social classes.
Private property divides people ā eliminate private enterprise and ownership.
Opinions divide people ā eliminate freedom of expression.
End result: uniformity via eradication of basic human rights.
There is but one religion: the State.
Little by little, the state becomes “god”, and that “god” demands worship and subservience.
In our own part of the world presently, there is a form of Marxist socialism brewing, but now it is not the State that is being deified.
It is the individual.
And if that god – the individual – sees that a human life developing inside goes against that god’s decisions or plans, that life should be sacrificed for the sake of this individual’s freedom.
The Church cannot stand idly by ideologies that deny a human being the right to life. If a political party amends its platform to expand abortion even to the day of birth, while abolishing any dissenting voices within the party, then the Catholic Christian must own the grave responsibility of re-examining his conscience and his affiliation to that party. Life is sacred, and we cannot allow that human right to be diluted, not for the unborn and not for the sake of a false compassion (euthanasia) for our elderly. The church condemns socialism on these grounds.
Nonetheless, the Church also condemns a very liberal, unbridled capitalism with as much force as it condemnsĀ socialism. You might wonder what the Church possibly could condemn about Capitalism? Capitalism’s fruits are prosperity, technological advancements in medicine, communication, infrastructure, agriculture, among so many others. The church condemns liberal capitalism on different grounds than it condemns Marxist socialism, but it does speak against this unbridled capitalism. These are the words of Pope Pius XI, almost 100 years ago:
Capitalism itself is not to be condemned, and surely it is not vicious of its very nature. But it has been vitiated by the international imperialism of money.
It’s not the individual that is god. Rather, the deity is money, financial systems, corporations. The Church condemns unrestrained capitalism on these grounds. These are the words of Pope Saint John Paul II, who fought against the abuses of communism.
The Marxist solution has failed, but the realities of marginalization and exploitation remain in the world, especially in the Third World, as does the reality of human alienation, especially, in the more advanced countries. Against these phenomena, the Church strongly raises her voice. Vast multitudes are still living in conditions of great material and moral poverty. The collapse of the communist system in so many countries certainly removes an obstacle to facing these problems, but it is not enough to bring about their solution. Indeed, there is a risk that a radical capitalistic ideology could spread, which refuses even to consider these problems in the belief that any attempt to solve them is futile, and those problems should be blindly entrusted to the development of market forces.
How true that human alienation is in our country! We could be financially prosperous but spiritually void. There is a moral poverty in our advanced countries that does not seem as wretched in Third World countries. “May the free market buoy these countries! May hard work raise them out of poverty!”-They claim.
We only need to see the mortgage crisis and job losses of 2008 to realize that unbridled capitalism succumbs to the selfishness of human nature.
Since the pandemic started, more than 40 million Americans have lost their jobs. How have richest 1% of Americans been affected? The 1% actually grew 30% richer over the course of six months, while 40 million are unemployed.
What is going on?
It is not capitalism, the Church posits, but a very radical form of capitalism taking root, this god. What is growing from this radical capitalism?
Astronomical national debt, which mortgages the future of our children and forthcoming generations.
Large corporations, modern-day empires, lobbying with governments not for human dignity, but for the sake of bottom lines and profit alone.
Many people are being deported and families are being divided.
Natural resources are being abused and depleted.
The Church cannot stay idle when it sees that the value of the human being is not measured by its dignity but by its productivity. What productivity do our elderly have? Our physically or mentally sick brothers and sisters, the poor, the oppressed?
In light of these driving ideologies, for whom, then, do we vote?
I invite you, first, to study the platforms and policies.
Recognize that some rights are more fundamental than others, from which the rest stem.
I cannot compare the right to flee from an oppressive government -the right to migrate- with the right to be born.
I cannot compare the right or the freedom of work with the freedom of religion.
Let me reiterate that:
There are some rights more fundamental than others
In these upcoming weeks, as you and I prepare to exercise our vote, it will be a struggle if we do it right. It always is a struggle because there is no candidate or political party that aligns completely with Christian teaching, and even there were, the Church has no interest in officially endorsing them. As Christians, we approach this discernment process with the Gospel of Christ in one hand and the newspaper in the other.
Keeping a blog is expensive-your kind donations (one-time or monthly) help me keep it up and running!
make your own religion
you fool
We all know the story of king Solomon, whom God would give the wisdom that he asked for. Solomon had it all: riches, lands, gold, slaves, and fame, and yet he was a searching soul. In Ecclesiastes he tells us of his journey, and his quest for what brings true happiness.
At first, Solomon thought that happiness was in pleasure; he focused his life on wine, parties, joy, and laughter, and we know of his sin of adultery. When it became apparent that this wasnāt cutting it, Solomon decided to enjoy and exploit his riches; he conquered lands, and amassed piles of gold and silver, and yet this too was not enough to satisfy him. Solomon began to search for happiness through wisdom and beauty. He made Jerusalem splendorous and beautiful; he rejoiced in art, singing, beautiful gardens, pools, fountains, and great vineyards. Eventually, at the end of this long search for happiness, he reached his final conclusion, which we hear in todayās reading: “All is vanity!” says Solomon. “Vanity of vanities” (Eccl 1:2).
Now, the word used for “vanity” in Hebrew, hebel, is also translated as vapor, breath, emptiness, or air; some also translate it as “bubble.” Everything is “bubbles.”Ā I donāt know if youāve ever been mesmerized by looking at a bubble, if youāve been absorbed by its size, its perfect roundness, and the changing colors of refracted light. If you have you will know that just when youāre starting to enjoy it, “poof,” it bursts leaving behind only a mist that quickly dissolves. Like Solomon, we are chasing bubbles when we could be seeking what will truly bring usĀ satisfaction.
In Hollywood, in the business world, and in the highest echelons of “success”, there is often a sensation of vacuity, and emptiness. Several years ago, I had the blessing to spend New Yearās Eve with my family in San Francisco. The whole city was in mourning because a great comedian, who used to live in San Francisco, had just taken his life. We happened to drive past his house that day, and I remember thinking to myself: Say you amass millions of dollars in your bank account. You can go wherever you want in the world. You donāt have to work. You can buy anything you want: any car, any house, any boat. You have everything. You wake up on a Tuesday morning, and what do you do? What is your drive? What is your purpose? In the first reading, Solomon tells us that when he lived only for the things of the world, his heart was full of anxiety, sorrow, and grief. “Even at night,” he says, his heart is “not at rest” (Eccl 2:23).
Have you ever thought about improving your audio system back at home? Maybe you go to the store to start looking at speakers; you see some small ones you think would be good enough. Then the shop assistants start their spiel: “If youāre gonna invest that amount of money, you might as well get these three foot-long speakers. Thatās quality! And if youāre gonna get these speakers, youāll want the new 109-inch flat screen TV. Itās gorgeous, gorgeous.” You think about it for a moment, “Sure,” you say, “might as well.” But the shop assistants wonāt stop yet: “If youāre getting a large TV, you gotta go high-def 4K! And for just a bit more you can have the 3D version of the TV!” Before you know it, you are back at home with your new shiny purchases. You plug in your Xbox, your Playstation, and your speakers, you put on your 3D glasses, and you sit yourself down in front of 2,344 channels of television. Andā¦ you are bored, not to mention angry that the newer and better versions of your new purchases have already been released.
Placing our hope in the idea that that TV system will give us and our loved ones true, refreshing, and lasting rest is to place our hope in a bubble that eventually pops. The void produced can gradually engender sadness, loneliness, anger, and bitterness. So I ask you, as I ask myself, what is the greatest possible good we can attain?
We woke up today to the news that, in addition to yesterdayās shooting in El Paso, there was another shooting at 1 am in Ohio. The emptiness that the darkness produces in the human heart can grow resentful at God, at Life, at others, and even turn to oneās self.
In 1998, an estimated nineteen million Americans were prescribed antidepressants; in 2015 it hadĀ doubled to forty two million. ThisĀ phenomenonĀ is now being calling by some the “medicalization of misery.” Many people certainly do suffer from clinical depression, a terrible illness. There are many more “signs of the times” weāre living ion, sign of a deep spiritual illness, a “spiritual depression.” Like Solomon, many of us have put our hopes in the perishable things of the world, with the expectation that these goods will somehow, finally satisfy our infinite longings and the hungers of our hearts. But they cannot. Ever. Our hearts remain thirsty, and the bubbles burst in front of our eyes, leaving us empty, anxious, and saddened. And it has to be like that, because our hearts were made for eternal treasures, for infinite riches that nothing finite can fully satiate.
In the Gospel, Jesus uses strong language to upbraid a rich man: “You fool!” Jesus tells to him. “Life will be demanded of you tonight” (Lk 2:20). This is the only time Jesus uses the word “fool”! Even when speaking to the Pharisees he refrains from using this word, so why does he call this man a fool? Mind you, was already rich when the parable began; and we can imply that he earned his riches rightfully, with the fruit of his workābut this isnāt what Jesus challenges. So, we might assume that Jesus disapproved of the manās greed and ambition, since he was already rich. In fact, the problem was not that this man was too ambitious, but rather that he was not ambitious enough. Not that he wanted too much, but that he didnāt want enough. The rich man had focused his gaze on the bubbles and theĀ witheringĀ things of lifeāthis was what made him a fool. The gospel tells us that because this man was not rich in what matters to God, then he could not know true riches, or true glory. This is the truth that Solomon learned, that what truly makes us happy is the wisdom of the heart that comes from following God. But what is this wisdom?
What is the greatest possible good worth striving for?
Jesus uses another reality to emphasize his point: the rich man will die today. There is one thing we know for sure: One day you and I are going to die. One day, our heart will beat for the last time, and we will exhale our last breath; we will enter that stillness and silence, and we will give our soul back to our Creator. We all want to believe that this will happen in a distant future. We constantly maintain the illusion that death is far away: ten, thirty, or sixty years down the road, and that death has no connection with the plans I have for this evening. We much rather prefer to think of death as something that will come when weāre looking for our dentures in a nursing home. We let death become hypothetical. And yet Death is the only thing that we can be certain will happen in our lives. “Life will be demanded of you,” Jesus said to the rich man,Ā and, like the rich fool, we also must make sense of death in order to make sense of life.
When Our Creator gave us the call, the vocation to live, he also gave us the call, the vocation, to give it back to Him, he also will call us to die. This gives us a unique perspective of our lives. We are called to give our souls, our bodies, and our entire being, back to our Heavenly Father. From this perspective, the perspective of eternity, everything else is bubbles, popping and disappearing at random. When we live with the knowledge that we will die, and that we could die at any time, we truly begin to appreciate the depth of our life as a continuous creation, a continuous gift from Our Creator. When I live with the reality that I am going to die, I can find the freedom to enjoy the present moment at its fullness, enjoy every meal as though it was my last; love my loved ones as if it was my last encounter with them; consecrate my work to God as my last sacrifice to Him. YOLO, short for “You Only Live Once,” has become a popular acronym, and itās exactly right! As Christians, we know that because we “only live once,” thatās we have to get it right. We know that life is not a matter of leisure, and that a happy life is not a matter of having the “stuff,” the “likes,” “the body,” or even good health. Life is a matter of truth and wisdom of heart.
Only a person who knows how to live, knows how to die, and only a person who knows how to die, knows how to truly live. How do we do this? How do we find the wisdom of God, that wisdom of heart? Saint Paul says in the Second Reading, “Put your old self to death”āas though he were speaking to us, personallyā “That part of you that is earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires, greed, that is idolatry” (Col 3:5) Idolatry is something that we want us to fill us like only God can, this could be material possessions, or something more abstract, like an idea, a person, or a relationship. If that person is not God, it cannot hold; this is idolatry.
“Guard against all greed,Ā for though one may be rich,Ā oneās life does not consist of possessions” (Lk 12:15). Luke calls us to guard ourselves, because we live in the world surrounded by so many good things that can lay claims to our hearts. These things are not inherently bad:
Desires are good
Money is good
Pleasure is good
but when we demand that they satisfy us in a way that only God can, they will, invariably, fail and fall shortāvanities, pop!
Paul extols us to, “Seek what is above” (Col 3:1) Here Paul points to the true riches in our life. “Think what is above.” How often do we think of Politics, our finances, our wants and desires; and how many times a day do we think of “what is above”? How many times a week do we seek it? It is certainly much easier to think and to seek what is “below,” what is here and now, the proximate, the immediate.
“Put on Christ.” Put on the virtues of Christ, the thoughts of Christ, and the feelings of Christ. Let us put on the dreams, the ambitions, and the wants of Christ. If we want to think of what is above, and guard ourselves from what is below, then we must put on Christ.
It seems to me that this is the greatest possible good: eternal riches that donāt decay, the salvation of your soul, your holiness.
There is nothing more urgent in your life than for you to be, to become, a man of God, a woman of God, today.
There is nothing more important for you, today, than to nourish your soul in Godās Word; to exercise your soul in sacrifice and fasting from the attachments of the temporal things for the sake of the eternal; to embody Godās love for you, todayāyou are precious in his eyes, he loves you so much that he cantās stand petty things taking ownership of your eternal spirit; to strengthen your soul, receiving the infinite riches of Godās love in his sacraments. I donāt know about you, but the space where Iāve experienced Godās saving mercy the most has been in Confession. Responding to those moments when Iāve placed my hopes in a bubble that left me empty in sin, mustering the humility to present myself to the priest, encouraged by the Heart of the Lord to word out my sins with clarity, and hearing the priestās words of compassion and absolution has moved me to the point of tears many times in my life, restoring my strength and hope to continue growing in Godās love. How often we relegate the liberating power of this sacrament only to Lent or Advent, when our soul needs it more often!
Let us refocus our attention to the highest possible good, the most urgent one worth pursuing today: that you be, become, a man of God, a woman of Godās love, today. We us ask the blessed Virgin Mary, Seat of Wisdom, to show us wisdom of heart, the wisdom to seeĀ worldlyĀ things, andĀ heavenlyĀ things for their true value; may she show us to put on Christ, to strive and elevate our gaze to the riches of heaven, to think of what is above, as she did, pondering all things in the silence of her heart.
Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you.
response-ability to love
Today’s readings cover a rich array of topics. We read about the early disciples of Christ in the Acts of the Apostles and their work to start and to continue the Kingdom of God. We hear about a new Heaven and a new Earth and of a New Jerusalem descending as a bride adorned for her husband. And finally we read about Jesus’s new commandment: to love one another as He has loved.
I have often talked about the dangers of seeing love purely as an emotion, as butterflies in our stomachs and goose bumps. A couple weeks ago, I stepped in at a wedding for a priest who got sick. I asked the couple, probably in their early twenties, about their marriage preparation and if they were ready.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this commitment?” I said, half jokingly.
“Oh, Father, we’re ready for anything because we love each other.”
I noticed an elderly couple in the back who overheard the conversation, look at each other with a gaze and a half smile as though saying They don’t know what they’re getting themselves into!
Anybody who’s been in a marriage for more than five years knows that love has to be something more than an emotion, something more lasting than a feeling. That is what will we be reflecting on today, this commandment of Jesus to love one another as He has loved us.
The homily is going to get a bit dark in a moment, but this is to explore what it truly means to love. If you get anything out of the homily may it be this: love and responsibility always go together. Always.
Love is Harsh and Dreadfulā¦Life is Suffering
It was Dostoyevsky, the great Russian author, who said, that “love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing.” Not only is it not butterflies in our stomachs, but love in action – to love truly – is a harsh and dreadful thing. In order to understand what love is and Jesus’ words about love, we need to explore what life is, at least biblically.
Most religions, even Buddhism, see suffering as an intrinsic part of life; that is particularly true in our Christian faith and we see the mystery of suffering signified by the cross. Not only is life suffering, but it seems to be compounded by malevolence, by people committing evil actions for the sake of provoking suffering! This begs the question: What is the purpose of suffering children who endure terrible, painful illnesses and die? The sad thing is not that we suffer, but that we don’t always find a purpose in our suffering.
Life is not fair.
We don’t choose our parents.
We don’t choose our children or siblings.
We donāt choose our illnesses.
We don’t choose our personality flaws.
So, to recap, life is suffering, and suffering compounded by malevolence, and it is not fair. Padre, this seems a pretty gloomy picture of life. Where does love come in, again? Well, this is the inflection point.
If you confront suffering voluntarily, you’ll find that you are way tougher than you think. You will find a spirit of resilience in you that refuses to be bogged down. If you confront suffering voluntarily, you’ll be in contact with that robust Spirit that is capable of overcoming and alleviating any source of suffering, making it better for others and for yourself; it is the same Spirit that compelled Christ to preach, to teach, and to give his life. The key word is confronting suffering voluntarily.
That’s where response-ability comes in. There’s a great danger of losing our response-ability, losing the ability to respond to whatever life throws at us, turning us into victims of Life.
I Didn’t Choose This
The dangerous mentality of victimhood lies in that the victim holds responsibility for nothing that has happened to him, and creates a prison in his own mind:
I am the victim of my own life.
I’m not responsible for anything.
I didn’t choose this illness.
I didn’t choose these children.
I didn’t choose this or that.
That doesn’t mean that to fall into the victim mentality is not to be a victim. Sometimes we are victims of great evils. We can be the victim of an illness, perhaps a terminal one. We can be the victim of a loss of a loved one, of violence or of an abuse in our past. We can be the victim of many things, but what truly takes away our freedom is to give in to the victim mentality. We lose our ability to respond. I’m convinced that, rather than shielding them from the sufferings of life, this capacity of resilience, this ability to respond is the best teaching we can pass on to our kids. There is something very powerful in learning that whatever the circumstances, we can choose our response.
The death of Saint John Paul II has always been a great testimony for me. This was a man devoted to preaching, to living as a son of God, to leading the Church. Little by little, his body and mind deteriorated, but he never gave in to a victimistic mindset. Those who’ve suffered a psychological or physical illness know that there comes a time when the illness starts to lay claims on more than our physical faculties; restlessness, despair, sadness, abandonment begin to erode our spirit if we give our freedom to this illness. There comes a time when we must say, “Even though I’m the victim of this suffering, I can choose how to respond. I’m still response-able.”
One Small Thing
There were a couple of months when I was home bound. I couldn’t get out of bed after a bad car accident in Mexico, finishing a retreat down in Mexico, before I joined the seminary. In my recovery, I could barely move and couldnāt leave my house. Initially I was up-beat and hopeful, but eventually I began to feel the darkness of victimism take over: I can’t do any exercise. I can’t see my friends. I can’t go to school. Me, me, me. Nobody takes care of me! Then I discovered that the mental suffering was compounding my physical suffering. It was making my suffering more unbearable and making my healing slower. It was making me bitter. I couldnāt even stand myself.
In a moment of prayer, I asked the Lord for His grace of suffering as He would. And I decided to take responsibility for one thing every day. One small thing. The first thing I decided to do was to smile: smile at whoever visited me, smile in thanksgiving at my foodāsmile, especially when I didn’t feel like smiling. This helped to stop feeling bad about myself and brooding. Next day it was to clean my closet, then call a friend I haven’t connected with, then to read for 15 minutes. Taking responsibility of one small daily thing gave me a bit of freedom and capacity to love a little more. I might not control most of the things in my life, but I can still choose how I respond. Be careful of victimism: itāll rob you of your freedom to love.
Weakness Can Be a Source of Strength
Enough about me. Letās look at how Paul and Jesus dealt with suffering and adversity. Paul, as you know, founded several churches. He was always traveling, moving, preaching. There was something pushing him to keep going. One church, the Corinthians, writes to Paul and Paul senses that their suffering is taking the best of them. This is what Paul writes back.
Are they ministers of Christ? (I am talking like an insane person.)Ā I am still more,Ā with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far worse beatings, and numerous brushes with death. Five times at the hands of the Jews I received forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the deep; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fastings, through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led to sin, and I am not indignant? If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness (Corinthians 11:23-30).
Paul is able to respond to his weakness, and in that he glories. He was beaten; shipwrecked three times; spent the night and the day floating out at sea; stoned. Yet, he didn’t stay imprisoned in his own victimhood. In the midst of all this pain and eventual death, his spirit remained free enough to love. He kept going. Think of Jesus, the true “victim.” We could even say that if there ever existed a victim in the world, someone to whom everything was taken, the only truly innocent man, it was him. Ā Look at what Jesus says, “No one takes my life. But I laid down on my own accord” (Jn 10:18). Ā What does Jesus mean by no one taking his life? He was beaten and crucified! And yet HE gave his life. It is this ability to respond in the face of suffering, it is this Spirit, that, paradoxically, frees us from suffering and brings about the capacity to love in the darkest of times.
As Jesus Loves
So, what does it mean to love as Jesus loved? Firstly, it’s that first commandment of picking up your cross, of shouldering the hand that life has dealt youāperhaps unfairlyā, even those things that you have made yourself think are outside of your control; to take responsibility of that illness, that situation, that uncertainty and to die to everything in yourself that is unnecessary and harmful, that you may resurrect in a new heaven and a new earth.
Secondly, not only is it about just picking up our cross and sustaining it, it’s about following Christ, the one whose spirit expands our capacity to freedom and to love. I may not be able to choose what’s happened to me, but I’m able to choose how I respond afterward. I can choose to follow Christ and this responsibility brings me freedom to love my marriage, my community, my country, my Lord.
In the measure in which we grow in our ability to respond, to love, we are also able to alleviate suffering for others and also take greater responsibility in tasks as small as doing the dishes, picking up a piece of trash that you find in your church, leading your children in their faith, writing a letter to the government or to some person that you see is going against the teachings of Christ; a greater responsibility gives us a greater capacity to love.
āLove is a harsh and dreadful thing,ā but it’s also your greatest power, to love as Jesus loved, your greatest spiritāto transcend sufferingwhile growing in freedom, to love every person, every aspect of your life, even its shadows, and to respond to it and do something about it, as small as it might be. To negate nothing of our lives takes courage, in the fullest sense (courage, from the French coeur: heart. To live a courageous life is to live a life with heart, true love).
Do You Want to be Right or do You Want to be Happy?
Think about those aspects of your life that bring you suffering: a resentment or bitterness, your marriage or family, your relationship with God. That is exactly where we are called to find freedom and take responsibility, with as small an action as we may begin – even to choose to smile!
As we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, we come to the awareness of what an amazing gift it is to love, we ask for the courage of taking responsibility to love, and to grow inthat freedom.
May our Lord, in His Sacred Heart, increase in us the ability to respond to love ourselves and our neighbors as He has shown us, as He loves us.
Please share, and thanks for your continued support in helping me maintain this blog!
