The War of Life vs Death

Holy Thursday night, and I stayed up with Jesus; this was the night of His total self-giving, and bearing the mockery that was heaped Him for doing so --- alone.  And He did it for me.  I would be up with Him. This night I read the Gospel of John’s version of the Passion, and Fr. Bartunek’s commentary, and watched the movie Saving Private Ryan, which is about the efforts of the man who gave his life to save him.

When John’s Gospel speaks of Peter’s three denials of Jesus (Jn 18:12-27), the Gospel commentary I read imagines Peter’s later thoughts: 

“For the first time I discovered that someone loved me … simply because I was me.  I thought I could earn the love He showed me … How wrong I was!  Who can earn honor from God?  The most reliable lesson of all: when I am weak, then I am strong, because I have to lean on the strength of the Lord.”

“Why am I afraid of failing, Lord?  You failed in the eyes of the world.  Peter failed.  Can my successes increase Your love for me?  Can my failures decrease it?  The only reason I fear failure is because I value my own achievements too much.  O Lord, what good are my achievements if they flow from fear and not from love?  Teach me to love, Lord, to love from Your love.”

In Saving Private Ryan are many examples of soldiers giving their lives for our country --- and of calling upon God as they lay dying.  The key storyline is about a man who went into grave danger and finally gave his life so that Private Ryan might live.  And at the end of the movie we see an old Mr. Ryan, standing in front of the gravestone of the man who gave his life for the then young Private Ryan.  And in tears he asks: “Did I earn your sacrifice?  Did I lead a good life?”

Those words remind us of the man, Jesus, who gave his life for us.  They are words we need to ask of Him and consider: “Did I learn to love, from Your love of me?”

These days are days to talk to Jesus about what He did, and why.  And also talk about what we are doing.  And if we can’t hear His voice, talk to our fellow soldiers, who are fighting this scary war we are in.  We are not alone, and we don’t want to wait until we are dying until we call our to Him.   

 

Seeing With The Heart

 

It’s Holy Week, and I will spend more time with Jesus, to understand more what He did, and why.  It’s not just reading words about what He did but seeing it in my heart.  To know more what He did and why, is to know HIM more.

Last week, I had noticed in the chapel cupola these words encircling the ceiling: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.”  The word “slain” jumped out at me at first, because I knew that people died, even willingly, but someone who is slain died wrongly; some law has been broken.  Lambs are butchered, but that word wasn’t used either, because it would infer that Lamb of God to be just another animal.  He’s way more than that. 

Today, I noticed the word “Who”.  In my brain I had perceived “The lamb which was slain.”  A lamb is an animal, a thing which had something happen to it, but a “Who” is a person, not a thing. That phrase, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain”, which is written above the crucifix on the wall and the Sacred Host on the altar, now helps me see these two with a much deeper understanding --- in my heart. He chose to permit both those awesome events, an awesome God beyond understanding choosing to show His humility beyond understanding, dying and then remaining with us always.  I think the word “LOVE”, as beyond the understanding of Peter and the apostles, explains that humility.

 

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Reading the Gospels this Holy Week, and the reflections in The Better Part (by Fr. Bartunek), I’m also getting some “aha” moments.  Seeing new depth of meaning in the words of the Gospel helps me understand the events which happened better, like when Judas was at the Last Supper table.  In John 13 it says “At that instant, after Judas had taken the (dipped) bread, Satan entered him. … As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out.  Night had fallen.”  I thought I understood what that last sentence meant: it was evening, and time for the meal to continue and then for Jesus to head to the garden.  Fr. Bartunek wrote in his commentary, however, that Jesus is the Light of the World.  When Satan enters Judas, night had fallen; the light of Jesus had gone out of him.

These and other commentaries give me much to reflect on this Holy Week, about what happened, and why.  I’ll think about those things as I watch my three favorite Holy Week movies, and I take down my Christmas tree and decorations.  Soon it will be time to celebrate Jesus’ re-birth at Easter, seeing that miracle with my heart. 

What Does It All Mean?

 

As I left the men’s prayer breakfast meeting early this morning, the Eastern sky was ablaze with beauty, and I gasped as I saw the awesomeness of God.  And then I thought: the God who created this awesome magnificence is actually way, way greater than this.  His beauty is such that I can’t even begin to imagine.

And then I came down to earth; and I thought: He chose to become a little, poor and homeless baby here on earth.  And despite being an eternal life, He chose to die, and suffer greatly, in His human life.  From all that magnificence to all that, well, that nothingness, and I asked myself: Why?  I know all the faith-filled answers to that question, but head knowledge and heart knowledge are two different ways of “knowing”, as I recently discussed.

Yesterday, I participated in a Dr. Lilles-led class discussion of the book: I Want to See God.  The title of that book mirrors what I just wrote about, what I want versus the awesomeness of God. We were in the chapters on Supernatural Wisdom, and Mystical Life and Contemplation.  The book walks you through St. Theresa of Avila’s Interion Mansions, and St. John of the Cross’ Mountain of Spiritual Growth.  We are not even halfway along these paths in the book and yet we have come to a point of awareness that, like the awesomeness of the sunrise, further growth in closeness to God is not something we are in control of (regardless of what “I Want”).  “Letting go and let God” seems to apply, because He does want us to draw closer, and wants to make it happen.  That “letting go”, however, is hard for most people, who of course ask: why?  We want to understand, with our pea brains, everything.  But God and the reason for His actions are beyond our human understanding.  I am aware of the concept of “agape” love, a total self-giving love, of all I am and have, to God and neighbor. The Bible uses that word to describe the love that Jesus had.  That love does not put “self” as a priority.  Understanding that concept versus living it, however, are somethings hard to understand themselves.  Needless to say any further, these class discussions are very awesome in their own way.

And it was after I had all these above thoughts that I began to read my Morning Prayer, which started with the Opening Hymn:

When morning fills the sky,
Our hearts awaking cry:
May Jesus Christ be praised.
In all our works and prayer
His sacrifice we share;
May Jesus Christ be praised.
The night becomes as day,
When from our hearts we say:
May Jesus Christ be praised.
The powers of darkness fear
When this glad song they hear:
May Jesus Christ be praised.

In heav’n our joy will be
To sing eternally:
May Jesus Christ be praised.
Let earth and sea and sky
From depth to height reply:
May Jesus Christ be praised,
Let all the earth now sing
To our eternal King:
May Jesus Christ be praised.
By this eternal song,
Through ages all along,
May Jesus Christ be praised.

 

And only a short while later I read perhaps an answer to my “why.”

Jesus was to die … to gather God’s scattered children into one fold.
(John 11:51,52)

 

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And as I write this at noon, it is pouring rain outside.  Did God, in His love for me, show me that sunrise?  Who knows; His ways are awesome.