FIRST TIME IN DUMAGUETE: OCTOBER 2012

 

   
  

   

  

   

 

  

Settling for Convenient Truths

27th Week of Ordinary Time (Monday 2012)

Reflections on Galatians 1:6-12  /  Luke 10:25-37

by Frank D.B. Savadera, SJ

One vocations promotions video I’ve been watching a lot lately is that which features Jesuit Superior General Fr. Adolfo Nicolas, SJ saying something like:  The world is a marketplace.  In it are a lot of voices selling a lot of things and convincing us to buy what it offers.  

Do we believe that we can allow the world to tell us who we are ... what we need ... whom we must associate with.  If we find ourselves subscribing simply to what the outside world is prescribing to us ... then easily ... I think we will find ourselves lost and at a lost and losing heart.  Why?  Because the world can actually bring us far, far and farther from an understanding of ourselves.  God desires that we enjoy the greater things.  The amazing thing however is:  we often settle for thing that are of less value ... that which brings us far far away from who and what God wishes us to be.

I think this is what Saint Paul is so bothered about when he tells the people of Galatia:   “I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel.” It is not that there is a different gospel ... but I think this is about ... quickly and easily exchanging the bigger TRUTH which is God and our relationship with him ... in exchange for something far from who and what we are.  Are we settling for something less than what God has to offer? We ask: To what other gospel (if there be anything else) are we listening?    

A GREATER CONSCIOUSNESS OF OUR TENDENCY TO STRAY AWAY FROM THE GREATER TRUTH ABOUT OURSELVES AND OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD ... AND SETTLING FOR A LESSER AND MORE CONVENIENT TRUTH.   In Chapter 3 of Saint Paul's letter to the Galatians, we read:  "O stupid Galatians.  Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified?  I want to learn this only from you: did you receive the spirit from works of the law or from faith in what you heard?  Are you so stupid?" 

We cannot BUT be continually FIRED UP in our desire to search for the GREATER TRUTH.  I think this is what MAGIS means.  WHAT IS THAT ... which is GREATER if not the GREATEST TRUTH ... that which merits for us eternal LIFE with God?  Jesus spoke of something not so new.  This had been preached even during the time of Moses:  "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."

The Gospel ... of course, proceeds with a narrative to show what a “neighbor” is ... and how it is that we can be a “good neighbor.”  And clearly ... we know who among the three characters ... exemplified the real trait of a neighbor (not the priest, not the Levi ... but amazingly ... the outsider (the Samaritan).  We can leave it at that.

What fascinates me however is how the two commandments were so ordered.  Even before we talk about love for or of neighbor ... there is such a thing as LOVE for and of God.  We can so love a neighbor the WRONG WAY.  Is that possible?  A friend so wished to express his/ her love for me ... by buying me a plane ticket to Hong Kong.  But I don’t need a ticket to Hong Kong because I already have a ticket to Hong Kong.  But my friend who wished to express his/ her love and concern for me ... buys me a ticket to Hong Kong nevertheless.  Is that love and concern?  Must we accept that there is such a thing as a faulty way of loving?

What our Gospel is teaching us perhaps is:  Real love of neighbor springs from the deep kind of love that we give to and experience with God ... with all of hearts, minds and souls.  We have to experience that kind of love FIRST and FOREMOST to know how it is to truly love others and be truly a NEIGHBOR.  Needless to say: love of any neighbor depends on how much we had given ourselves the chance to love and be loved by God.  Without this single criterion ... any form of loving is suspect.  

Called to a greater consciousness of how we may forsake a BIGGER TRUTH for a more convenient one and less eternal ... and more fleeting one. 

We cannot help be continually fired up to search for that greater and more lasting truth.

No lasting love of neighbor exists outside an experience of loving God and experiencing his love with all our hearts, minds and souls.

I Want To Spend My Heaven Doing Good On Earth

Feast of St. Therese of Liseux 

by Frank Savadera, SJ

There's a lot that we can pick up from the image of Jesus taking a child and placing it by his side and saying:  “Whoever receives this child in my name ... receives me.”  Of course, we know how fragile a child or a baby is like.  I’ve always been afraid carrying or cuddling a baby (I might drop or hurt it).  But there is something about a child that is totally reliant on the protection and providence of its parent or caregiver. 

I think this is what we can glean from the life and example of St. Therese of Lisieux (the Little Flower of Jesus).  Compared to the other women doctors of the Church (Catherine of Sienna and Teresa of Avila), Therese lived a somewhat “uneventful” and quiet life.  She entered the monastery at age 15 years and in 9 years (she was 24 years old) she was already dead.  But then we can learn a lot from her being very childlike.  From her autobiography ... THE STORY OF MY SOUL, Therese mentions:  I PREFER THE MONOTONY OF OBSCURE SACRIFICE TO ALL ECSTASIES.  TO PICK UP A PIN FOR LOVE CAN CONVERT A SOUL.

In another instance:  I WANT TO SPEND MY HEAVEN doing good on earth.”

Pertaining to her relationship with her spiritual director, she says:   "Directors make people advance in perfection by performing a great number of acts of virtue, and they are right. But my Director, who is Jesus Himself, teaches me to do everything through love."

And lastly and more concretely referring to wish to be childlike, she says:  "You make me think of a little child that is learning to stand but does not yet know how to walk. In his desire to reach the top of the stairs to find his mother, he lifts his little foot to climb the first stair. It is all in vain, and at each renewed effort he falls. Well, be this little child: through the practice of all the virtues, always lift your little foot to mount the staircase of holiness, but do not imagine that you will be able to go up even the first step! No, but the good God does not demand more from you than good will. From the top of the stairs, He looks at you with love. Soon, won over by your useless efforts, He will come down Himself and, taking you in His arms, He will carry you up ...”

Lord, allow us the grace to be child-like, to recognize how much we can depend on you; how much we can live our lives fully with child-like joy ... as you had gifted your servant, St. Therese of Lisieux.