Lamps, Light and Love

Lamps, Light and Love

[Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this: Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.   Five of them were foolish and five were sensible: the foolish ones did take their lamps, but they brought no oil, whereas the sensible ones took flasks of oil as well as their lamps.   The bridegroom was late, and they all grew drowsy and fell asleep.  But at midnight there was a cry, "The bridegroom is here! Go out and meet him."   At this, all those bridesmaids woke up and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish ones said to the sensible ones, "Give us some of your oil: our lamps are going out".  But they replied, "There may not be enough for us and for you; you had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves".   They had gone off to buy it when the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding hall and the door was closed.  The other bridesmaids arrived later. "Lord, Lord," they said "open the door for us."  But he replied, "I tell you solemnly, I do not know you".  So stay awake, because you do not know either the day or the hour.] (Matthew 25:1-13)

         The context of this parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (literally, Virgins) is foreign to our marriage customs today.  Back then, after the marriage betrothal, the bridegroom would leave the bride with her father, and return to his father’s house to prepare a home for her.  When all was ready, he would then triumphantly return to claim his bride.  The young unmarried bridesmaids would go out to greet and usher him in, and the community would celebrate the union.  This is my limited understanding of that ancient ritual.  The following is my imaginings of what our Lord’s parable might mean for us today.

         Most importantly, it is a love story –of our God who frames the culmination of life in Spousal Love.  That the Creator, of all that is, joins himself to us in the intimacy of a marriage union, can only be mystery to which everything else in the story points to.  As in all love stories, happiness is revealed against the contrast of tragedy.  Here, the Faithful are rewarded with Eternal Joy, while those who did not persevere to the end, were unable to pass through Judgment’s Door.

         This entire chapter is in fact, about the Great Judgment waiting to expose the film of our lives.  It is inevitable, inescapable, and there are no do-overs.  All humanity shares in the same drama: gifted with Life, destined for Love, we must struggle to accept or reject our Divine Purpose.  This opening parable, I believe, speaks to this Judgment, to what is required of us, and to what will insure our success.

         First, let us acknowledge that all ten bridesmaids set out to meet the Bridegroom.  Some were wise and some were foolish, but all had made the commitment to seek and join him; all of them discerned their Divine Purpose; all began the journey.  They were Virgins, they were saving themselves for the Husband of Their Dream; they were unattached, free to throw themselves without distractions into their calling.  And, if we were allowed to flesh out the details of this story, most certainly, there might be many other players beside the Ten: those who spurned the invitation to greet the Bridegroom; those who were not saving themselves for the Other, who only sought to please themselves; those who were beyond foolish, who were already Lost.

         The Ten, were a privileged lot.  They found their Purpose, their Meaning in Life.  They were a Consecrated People; set aside to bear light on the Light of Lights; to usher in the Source of all Light and join with him in Love.  So it was that all on the journey carried a Lamp Burning.  

         What can this all mean?  To be found with our light burning brightly is mission critical.  We will either pass or fail.  There is no second chance.  This is our common destiny, our unavoidable test.  That it will happen is certain, but when is never known.  

         The lamp’s Light is the Burning Fire of Love.  But, it is not for illuminating the path, ‘going as we do by faith and not by sight’ (2COR 5:7), for, “anyone who loves his brother is living in the light and need not be afraid of stumbling’ (1JN 2:10).  Rather, our Light, our Love, is to be a Sign: that we may be identified; that the Bridegroom will not say of us, “I do not know you."  For, ‘everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.’ (1John 4:7).  Love is the reason for breath -what brings us into Eternal Light.     

Oil must burn before it becomes Light, and we must die before we can love.  The lamps then, are where Oil is sacrificed to become Light.  If light is the product of something consumed, then the lamps are Occasions of Love -where Self is sacrificed; where Selfish Desire is consumed by Grace; where Will submits to Obedience.  To carry a lamp is to be a Living Yes -to a God who only asks for Love.  To carry a lamp is to give witness -to be a Reflection of our Creator; to be a consecrated Vessel of Love.

The Oil is the fuel, the source, the Grace which ignites into Love.  It is the essence of our Living Yes, yet it comes not of our self, but of God –it is, in Truth, God himself.  That is why it is not our possession, to give away to one who has not.  It can only be attained through surrender.  The Oil is the Spirit of God, whose image we become in Love.  It is Mystery manifested; the Incarnate becoming carnate, and the carnate becoming Divine.  It is the Quintessence of Grace.

All of the Ten began with their lamps full of Oil, but only the sensible ones took flasks of oil.  They understood more would be demanded, that the night would take them where they could go no longer, where their youth would be humbled, their exuberance shriveled, where a blood moon would cast them as a shadow of the Cross.  Only the wise ones readied themselves for the midnight hour: where weariness closes eyes to Hope; where inner strength runs dry, and Darkness erases the memory of Sun.  They knew that only ‘Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding hall…’    

It was, in this Midnight Hour, that the Foolish Five left their watch.  Faith blinked within.  Fear of Emptiness drove them away -just inches from journey’s end.  It was also, in this Midnight Hour, that the Faithful Five dipped into their flasks of oil.  With flames burning bright, they shook off the Darkness and greeted the Bridegroom.  Radiant with Joy, the Night became a New Day.

          And what might be these Saving flasks of oil in our lives?  We cannot persevere in Love without Faith and Hope.  So, that which Anchors us in these virtues becomes our flasks of oil: Feeding on the Body and Blood of Christ; daily Prayer and Scripture; Christian Community -whatever calls us into Truth will root us in the Promises of God, where Fear and Darkness cannot coexist with the Light of Love.  Faith and Hope then, ever renewed, ever regenerated by Truth, guarantees that we will be found in Love; that with our Light burning brightly, we will be Recognized, and the Door will be opened unto us.

Baseball According To God

Baseball According To God

    “By his divine power, he has given us all the things that we need for life and for true devotion, bringing us to know God himself, … In making these gifts, he has given us the guarantee of something very great and wonderful to come: through them you will be able to share the divine nature and to escape corruption in a world that is sunk in vice.  

But to attain this, you will have to do your utmost yourselves, adding goodness to the faith that you have… Brothers, you have been called and chosen: work all the harder to justify it.  If you do all these things there is no danger that you will ever fall away.  In this way you will be granted admittance into the eternal kingdom…” (2Peter 1:3-5, 10-11)

Upon reading these verses, a baseball metaphor came to mind, which in turn caused me to wonder why it is so common to use sport metaphors in describing religious truths.  Perhaps, it is because at the end of a game, as in life, everybody ends up either a winner or a loser.  

This gave me an idea –what if the game of baseball was reverse engineered to better fit St. Peter’s presentation of the Good News; what would it look like?  Here’s my go at it…  Batter up!

Right off the bat (cheap pun intended), there is a winning team and a losing team.  The losing team is named Selfers, and their mascot is this guy staggering around as a giant can of beer.  The winning team is named Lovers, and their mascot is a guy waving a giant Cross.  The teams do not pick their players.  The players pick their team, and they can switch teams whenever they want.  Those who want to eat, drink and be merry choose the Selfers.  Those who want to live their life for Christ choose the Lovers.  The Selfers always have the advantage of greater numbers.

There is no score; and an undetermined number of innings.  Neither team knows when the game is over; just that it ends the next time the Lovers’ Manager shows up on the field.  The goals of each team are unrelated.  The Selfers just want to have fun by hitting the ball and running.  The Lovers have their hearts set on getting Home.  There is no best four out of seven series –just one Big Game.

Everyone is guaranteed a hit and a chance to run Home.  There are no forced outs.  A player secures each succeeding base by living for Jesus.  The Selfers of course never make it to First, but they don’t care because they are having fun.  Anyone failing to love is tagged out, but is eligible to bat again.

There are no Home Runs.  The only ones who make it Home are the players who have faithfully run the bases.  Those on First have shown they made the Choice and are running in earnest; those on Second have proven their endurance and perseverance; by Third they have found wisdom; and the final journey towards Home is not unlike the path to Calvary.

Many Selfers get tired of living for fun and are driven to taste the Joyful Sweat of the Lovers’ toil; and many Lovers, losing touch with their Manager, become withered –some rediscover his Presence and Power, and some, despair and switch to the Selfers.  One can never tell by the player’s uniform whether they will end up a winner or a loser.

To a casual observer, playing the Big Game might appear foolish.  But to one who thirsts deeply, it offers Life.  Even St. Paul, the New Testament’s greatest sports fan, enjoins us to compete: “All the runners at the stadium are trying to win, but only one of them gets the prize. You must run in the same way, meaning to win.  All the fighters at the games go into strict training; they do this just to win a wreath that will wither away, but we do it for a wreath that will never wither.  That is how I run, intent on winning; that is how I fight, not beating the air.  I treat my body hard and make it obey me,  for, having been an announcer myself, I should not want to be disqualified.” (1COR 9:24) ; and again, “I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith;” (2TM 4:7).

          Loving Father, how I long to c0me Home, to rest in your Bosom.  Holy Spirit, fill me anew with your passion to Love.  Jesus, help me to keep my eyes on the Goal.  I want to live for you.  I want to love for you.  When I cross Home Base,  I want to hear you exclaim, “Father, Behold!  I have made another like unto you!”

A Stump, A Child, An Advent

A Stump, A Child, An Advent

(Isaiah 11:1-10; Luke 10:21-24)

As I read these readings from the first week of Advent, I gave praise to God for our “Holy Mother Church”.  In reflecting on that unusual title, Holy Mother, I realized that it is my Catholic roots which have given me the very framework for which I find myself thanking God.  That is to say, “Mother Church” is a term familiar to the Catholic perspective, where the Church is seen as giving birth to its members, in contrast to the members giving birth to their church.

My Church, my Mother, my Source of Nourishment, my Guiding Hand, is a Womb transcending time and space, weaving me into the Body of Christ, with all the saints present and past.  It is in this miracle of Advent, that I find myself a living, integral piece of the Body of Christ, a Living Stone in the New Jerusalem .

These thoughts were evoked as I was struck with the Church’s wisdom in pairing together the readings from Isaiah 11 and Luke 10.  Isaiah’s prophecy of the stump of Jesse sprouting a shoot of New Life, is paired with Luke’s account of Jesus exulting, with the Joy of the Holy Spirit, that what was hidden from the learned, is now revealed to the Childlike.  Read together, these verses shed light on each other in a manner where the sum of their parts is greater than their whole.  Our Holy Mother Church, in the pairing of this Word, opens a window into the Mind of God.

Immediately preceding the stump of Jesse vision, Isaiah writes, “See, the Lord Yahweh Sabaoth hews down the boughs with a crash. The topmost heights are cut off, the proudest are brought down.  The forest thickets fall beneath the axe. Lebanon and its splendors collapse.”  

Everyone, sooner of later, will be “brought down”, laid low.  Not just pruned, but cut to the stump.  And this can yield two possibilities: One, a sense of dejection, failure, despondence; 0r, it can become an opportunity  to be humbled …to find new eyes …to understand that of ourselves we are but dead wood …that if we embrace our death, we will discover the Saving Power dwelling deep within our roots …that the Spirit of God is waiting, to burst forth with New Life …with New Life that could not take place until our Tree of Pride has been cut down …that the Hand that wielded the axe, is the same Spirit which is pushing up New Growth.

Luke sets his stage with the preceding account of how the seventy-two came back rejoicing because they saw Satan defeated whenever they called on the Name of Jesus.  Through the Name of Jesus, death now yields New Life.  But Jesus reminds his disciples, that the true cause of their joy, is their Childlike Faith …a faith which embeds them into the Lap of The Father, a Father that is ever faithful to his children.

Taken together, these two readings shed light on what Nicodemus found incomprehensible, that in being Born Again, we are indeed placed back into the Womb of the Holy Spirit, where we are recreated into a Child of God, freed from the Power of Sin, to become what we were destined to be from the beginning.

And so we begin Advent with the promise of New Birth.  Where the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, whose childlike “Yes”, conceived and gave birth to our Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Out of the Root of Jesse he comes into the world, breathing his Holy Spirit upon us, giving birth to our Church that Pentecost Day, a Church that ever Mothers us, ever birthing us with Word and Eucharist, with Water and Spirit, into New Life.

Come, Emmanuel.  Come, Word Made Flesh.  Come, Light of Lights.  Pierce our Darkness.  Come, Savior of the world.  We have been cut low, oh Lord.  We surrender.  We hope only in you.  With eyes steeled on that Christmas Star, we wait …to be Born Again.  Come Lord Jesus, come!

From The Depths

From The Depths (Psalm 130)

“From the depths I call to you, Yahweh, Lord,

        listen to my cry for help!

Listen compassionately to my pleading!

If you never overlooked our sins,

        Yahweh, Lord, could anyone survive?

But you do forgive us: and for that we revere you.

I wait for Yahweh, my soul waits for him,

         I rely on his promise,

                my soul relies on the Lord

                        more than a watchman on the coming of dawn.

…For it is with Yahweh that mercy is to be found…”

         Lord, my soul as become familiar with the Depths.  Your Glory, so bright, is shadowed. Sin has darkened your Light.  Burdens of this life loom large.  I am weak.  Youth’s arrogance is a distant illusion.

        

         Only say the Word and my soul shall be healed.  …Yet you allow me to know the freedom of brokenness.  …Yet am I driven to hope.  …Yet must I still seek your Saving Hand.

        

         What mystery is this Life with you.   Invisible is This Hand that sustains me so.  Unquestionable is your Promise.  Unfathomable this Well Of Faith, this Source of Hope.

          

        You empty what you desire to fill.  You break what you desire to heal.  You humble what you desire to raise.  So it is Lord, that I know now the Watchman’s need.  The Night forbid his eyes to see.  Try as he might it, in vain could he see without your Light.

         I know now, that Watchman’s need was comforted.  For your Mercy goes first, to those in the darkest of night.  Only in clinging to your Faithfulness, can I see the Dawn that is yet to be.

Take Up Your Oar And Follow Me

Take Up Your Oar And Follow Me

            Once upon a time, there was an old holy man, who lived high on a mountain, in a cabin along a river that flowed to a village of very poor people.  He poured out his life ministering to them.  He became a legend among them.  He spent the long winters hauling supplies up from the valley below. All the food, medicine and gifts for the children had to be carried up the mountain on his back.  Then in the spring, when the river melted, he loaded his precious supplies onto his trusty raft, to navigate the dangerous waters to their village. All the while he was buoyed up with the anticipation of the gifts he bore, and the Gospel News he so loved to share.

            After years of service, the old man had become too frail to continue the grueling trips.  While he was awaiting the arrival of the young recruit to carry-on his life's work, he decided to make one last trip to say farewell to his beloved flock.  As soon as he set out into the river, the rapids overwhelmed his raft and smashed his oar against a rock, breaking it.  Undaunted, he tied-off the raft, and hiked back to his cabin.

            When he arrived, he found the young recruit waiting to report for duty. The young man said, “I want to be like you, I want serve the Lord.”  “You may begin then, said the old man, by returning to the valley below, and bring back an oar, that I might finish my last trip.  I know you must be exhausted from your long week’s climb, so eat and sleep well tonight, then leave at first light.  Before you leave, it would do you well to read verse one of the second chapter of Sirach, that you may be encouraged on your journey.”  The young man said, “I want to serve the Lord.  I shall return with your oar.”  But in his eagerness to be on his way, he forgot to read the Scripture.

            Going down the mountain proved every bit as difficult as the ascent.  He slipped and fell many times, and with each bruise and scrape, he said, “I want to serve the Lord!”  When he finally reached the city, he immediately purchased an oar, a week’s supply of food, and then set off with his face set to climb the mountain.  Dragging that oar made the journey harder and longer than he had planned.  With yet another day and a half to go, he found himself without food.  That night, he went to sleep hungry, telling himself, “I want to serve the Lord!”

            As morning broke, he was awakened by a ferocious roar.  He opened his eyes to an angry bear, rearing up on its hind legs.  The young man grabbed his oar, and began beating the bear with all his might, and with all the might of his guardian angel as well.  As the bear turned to flee, the final whack on its back broke the oar in half.

            The tears in the young man’s eyes told the old man everything he needed to know.  He held the young man in his arms.  “I am so proud of you, he said.  And it grieves me to tell you, that my life is at its end.  I have only a short time to say goodbye to my people.  I must ask you to go quickly and bring me another oar.”  The young man said, “I want to serve the Lord!”  He gathered up his supplies and set off down the mountain.

            Three weeks went by, and the young man returned with a jubilant smile.  He shouted, “See, I have brought you two oars, one extra, in case of bears!”  The old man hugged him in a long silence, kissed both cheeks, and said, “You are a faithful servant.”  Then, tucking both oars under his arm, he turned, and waded into the river to shove off his raft.  But the old man suddenly stood up straight, clenched his heart with both hands, and slumped to his knees.

            The young man jumped into the water and held the old man in his arms, as they watched the oars float away in the rapids.  The young man tried to smile as he cried softly to the old man, “It’s ok, I can get you some more oars.”  The old man looked up to the sky, then closed his eyes, and sighed with a half smile -the kind one has as he lays his head into his pillow after a long hard day’s work.  Then he whispered, “I don’t need them now, I have these two angels instead.”

             The sun was setting when he buried the old man in the garden.  The young man sat down on the porch to ponder all that had happened.  The day’s last light shone upon the old man’s tattered bible.  It had a faded picture bookmarking the worn pages.  He opened to it, and held the picture toward the sun.  It was of the young old man, standing proudly on a brand new raft, leaning on an oar.

    The young man looked at the bible.  It was opened to the second chapter of Sirach, its pages coffee stained.  The first verse was underlined.  He read it aloud to himself, “My son, if you desire to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for an oar-deal.