+THEY TOOK OFFENSE AT HIM (14th Sunday of Ordinary Time-b)
The readings this morning speak to us of just how delicate the Christian life
is. They speak of the privilege of being witnesses of a divine life at work in
us and at the same time, of how easy it is to become either witnesses of ourselves
or of false values around us. To put it more frankly, they speak of the danger
of rejecting the great gift so graciously given at Baptism. When his own
town’s folk took offense at him and Jesus is telling them that “a prophet is not
without honor except in his native place, among his own kin and in his own
house,” he is touching an issue very close to home and let me dwell on this with
you.
The Christian or monk is one called to inner transformation, to becoming a new
creation in Christ. We, you and I, are to be children of God. We are being
called to take on the very life of God, to think, to feel, to speak and act as
the very sons and daughters of God. We are to hear in our own lives what St Paul
so clearly heard in his, that “my grace is sufficient for you, for power is made
perfect in weakness.” For Paul this meant becoming “content with weaknesses,
insults, hardships, persecutions and constraints, for the sake of Christ.” Will
it be any different for us? For only when we know our own weaknesses can we know
the power of God, know by experience what it is to live in the Spirit, to be a
child of God.
I don’t know about you but I find myself resisting this kind of inner
conversion, this living in my weakness. Being content with insults, hardships,
persecutions and constraints go against the grain and my defenses go up. Our
life as Christians is a daily call into faith, into learning that the very
circumstances in which we find ourselves are the means, the path to inner
transformation, of being conformed to Christ. Jesus coming to his own native
place is a wonderful metaphor for what happens in each of our hearts. We can
either open up in faith, see what he is doing through the people with whom we
live, the family or community in which we find ourselves immersed, or we can say
I know whose carpenter’s son this person is, what kind of family he or she is
out of, and there is not word of God here for me.
Let me suggest that God’s word is being spoken all around us, that there are
prophetic voices in our Church and society and often in our hearts if we only
have the faith to hear them. We have with us this morning a group of Lay
Contemplatives, persons desirous of living aspects of our Cistercian way of life
adapted to their lives in the world. Their desire for a more Christian and
contemplative way of life is one of the encouraging signs today of a real thirst
for deeper experience of Christ.
The God, who has drawn so infinitely close to
us in his Son Jesus, is surrounding each one of us with countless opportunities
to grow in love, to expand our horizons, to be continually conformed to the
example Christ has left us. If we just see the carpenter, the physical son of
Mary, the brother of James, Joses, Judas and Simon, his sisters here with us, we
will block the healing inner transformation he wants to work in us, in our
families and community.
Our Fr Louis or Thomas Merton as he is more commonly
known says, “Ultimately, faith is the only key to the universe. The final
meaning of human existence, and the answers to the questions on which all our
happiness depends cannot be found in any other way.” Faith opens our eyes to
recognizing the many ways Jesus continually draws close to us. Faith opens our
eyes to know, in that deep Hebrew sense of the word, “that a prophet has been
among us,” indeed to know that the Word of God become flesh dwells in our
hearts.
It is this faith that opens our eyes to the wonderful mystery we are about to
celebrate at this altar, that we are about to make present the very life, death
and resurrection of him who is the very life of the world. And it is this life
of Jesus that continues to live in us as we leave this place and carry out each
of our responsibilities. What we gather here to celebrate is never over but
keeps unfolding and overflowing in every home, in every community setting.
Whether it be making cheese or fudge, cooking a meal, being with family on a
vacation, enjoying a meal together, Christ wants nothing so much as to live in
us. As St Augustine loved to say, to receive his Body and Blood is not to change
Him into us but to let ourselves be changed into Him.
Michael Casagram, OCSO
Abbey of Gethsemani
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Contact information:
Mailing Address
LCG, PO Box 503, Oxford, OH 45056
E-mail: info@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
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