A PILGRIM’S NOTES ON MERCY: God Is Merciful (2)

A PILGRIM’S NOTES ON MERCY: God Is Merciful (2)

Fausto Gomez, OP

Greek philosopher Plato says that the best definition of the virtue of justice is a just person. We know the definition of the virtue of mercy as compassion for the needy. It is a good definition but still – like all definitions – a bit cold and unmoving. The warm and moving definition of the virtue of mercy is the merciful person, and therefore the best definition of mercy is our infinitely merciful God.
God is merciful and compassionate, eternally merciful and sympathetic (Ps 118). He appears to Moses and presents himself thus: “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity” (Ex 34:6-7). The Lord is merciful: He forgives and heals and feeds and redeems and “renews your youth like an eagle’s” (Ps 103:3-5). He is like a faithful and loving spouse (Is 5:1-7), a father (Is 63:15-16; Ps 103:13), and, above all, a mother, better than the best of mothers: “Can a woman forget her baby, / feel no pity for the child she has borne? / Even if these were to forget, / I shall not forget you” (Is 49:15).
While in the Bible’s Old Testament God is called Father not often, in the New Testament Father is the favorite name to describe God, who is called the Father of Jesus Christ 203 times and the Father of believers 53 times (Theological Historical Commission, Holy Year 2000). “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 P 1:3). God is “the merciful Father” (2 Cor 1:3), rich in mercy because of his great love for us (Eph 2:4).
God, One God, is love (1 Jn 4: 8, 16) and is Trinity: He is One and Triune; not a solitary God but a loving God. Commenting St. Bonaventure, writes Walter Kasper in his monumental work Mercy: “From eternity God has a beloved and a co-beloved. He is thus God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit,” “Triune Being in love.” He is eternal, almighty, omnipotent and merciful. His mercy, primary divine attribute, is an attribute which especially shows his omnipotence. God is merciful because He loves us with common love as his creatures and with special love as his image and likeness (Gen 1:26), who wishes to be united to us as One and Triune (Jn 14:23). God wants the salvation of all (II Pet 3:9; I Tim 2:4; I Tim 4:10). St Thomas comments: God wants the salvation of all, and therefore He offers sufficient graces to all – all means all!
Jesus is the face of the merciful and compassionate Father. “He who has seen me,” Jesus says to Philip at the Last Supper, “has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). In Jesus, we know his Father (Jn 14:7). In a true sense, Jesus is Mercy (John Paul II), “Mercy made flesh” (Pope Francis, Opening the Year of Mercy).
In the Gospels, Jesus feels “compassion of the crowd” (Mt 9:36; 14:14; Mk 6:34). Jesus Christ is the Messiah announced by the prophets because he does the works of mercy: “The blind see again, the lame walk, those suffering from virulent skin- diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the good news is proclaimed to the poor” (Lk 7:22). He is merciful like the Father of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11:32), the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37), and the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:11). As the Good Samaritan, He heals the sick, expels demons from the possessed, feeds the hungry, forgives sins and raises the dead to life (Mk 5:21-42). As a Good Shepherd, He goes as far as giving his life for his sheep (Mt 20:28).
The redemptive incarnation of Christ is the supreme work of his merciful and compassionate love. Jesus on the Cross as the way to his Resurrection represents the culmination of the revelation of mercy. According to John Paul II, “the Paschal Christ is the definitive incarnation of mercy.” He is universal mercy: Christ died for all without exception (cf. Mt 18:14; Rom 5:8; in CCC 605-606). How will He save those who do not know him at all: “Grace works in an unseen way” (Vatican II, GS 22; LG 16)
Mary, the Mother of Jesus and our Mother is merciful. Romanus the Melodist (6th century) writes: “Fittingly, the Merciful One has a merciful Mother.” Mary’s Magnificat is a song of praise, gratitude and merciful love, a merciful love that “extends from age to age…” (Lk 1:50). All the saints practiced merciful love.
The Church proclaims Jesus’ mercy. Mercy is the very foundation of the Church: the mercy of God incarnated in Jesus and poignantly manifested in his wounded Sacred Heart (cf. John Paul II, encyclical on mercy Dives in Misericordia 13). The Church is the Church of the Sacraments, in particular the Sacrament of Mercy or Penance, and the Sacrament of merciful love, or the Eucharist. The Church is “called above all to be a credible witness of mercy, professing and living it as the core of the revelation of Jesus Christ” (Pope Francis, MV 25). Pope Francis has often applied to the Church the image of a field hospital after a battle. She is the tender mother who cares for the wounded on the roads of life, principally for the most wounded.
May he Church, the People of God show to our world, in a special way this Jubilee Year of Mercy, the merciful face of Christ, the incarnate Son of God, the Crucified and Risen Lord!
(Also published in O Clarim, Macau February 2016)

A PILGRIMAGE NOTES ON MERCY: The Virtue Of Mercy

A PILGRIMAGE NOTES ON MERCY: The Virtue Of Mercy

Fausto Gomez, OP
On a Friday afternoon Linus tells his friend Charlie Brown of the Peanuts Family: Have a happy week-end. The round-headed boy, the kind master of Snoopy answers him: Thank you. And in pensive mood asks Linus, the kid with the security blanket: Incidentally, what is happiness? Through the Jubilee Year of Mercy, some are asking, Incidentally, what is mercy?
Philosopher Spinoza says that virtue fascinates and attracts. Virtue is a good habit, a firm internal inclination that directs persons to live as flourishing human beings,a trait of character which shapes our vision of life.
Virtues, sources of true happiness, put order in our lives and harmonize dynamically our potencies, traits and skills. Virtues are harmoniously interconnected like the parts of an organism. There are the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity, which are God gifts, and the moral/cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance, which are God gifts and are also acquired by us through repetition of similar acts. Rooted in divine grace, the infused virtues are perfected by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit present in the graceful soul, which is inhabited by the Blessed Trinity.
The virtue of mercy is deeply connected with the virtue of charity which is love of God and love of all neighbor, which is the virtue above all others (CCC, 25), the form of all virtues, their mother and coordinator. A free gift from God, charity is joyful, peaceful and merciful. Mercy is a fruit of charity (Gal 5:22-23), an internal effect of charity as love of neighbor. It is a great virtue proceeding from charity or from human love and presupposing justice. Mercy is above justice, but there cannot be true mercy without justice and no full justice without merciful love. The virtue of mercy, a gift of God love, may also be acquired through repetition of compassionate acts of love, of the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.
Through the practice of mercy, we participate in the lives of other human beings and in the life of the Blessed Trinity. God One and Triune is merciful and in his mercy shines in a great manner his omnipotence. The greatest virtue human persons may possess is charity, which unites them to God and makes them similar – in a real but limited way -, to him. Among all the virtues related to the neighbor, mercy is the highest virtue (St. Thomas Aquinas).mercy

Mercy or compassion can be a mere emotion or passion of the sense appetite or a virtue of the intellectual appetite, the will, in which case it is also related to the passions. If compassion is only a passion of the senses when facing the misery of another then it is not a virtue but a passion or feeling or emotion that does nothing to alleviate the suffering of the neighbor. If it is a free movement of the will regulated by reason, aroused by the suffering of another person and leading to do something positive about that suffering, then it is the virtue of compassion or mercy: affective and effective mercy.
Compassion or sympathy is opposed to apathy and antipathy. Apathy is indifference to the sufferings of others. A person who does not transcend himself or herself, who is self-centered is not compassionate. Antipathy is the opposite of compassion. It is an attitude of dislike if not condemnation of some others, like the poor, the uneducated, the refugees, the migrants, women, the elderly, and children. Empathy, moreover, is wider than compassion, for it places the empathetic in the shoes of the others – not only of those who are needy (compassion), but also of those who are happy (see Rom 12:15).
There may be also true and false compassion. True compassion entails to be moved by the neighbor suffering and do something good about it, while false compassion, or pseudo-mercy, is ending our neighbor life – be an unborn child through abortion, or a terminally ill patient or a dependent elderly through euthanasia and assisted suicide. St. John Paul II writes: True compassion leads to sharing another pain; it does not kill the person whose suffering we cannot bear.
Mercy then is heartfelt sympathy for another’s distress that impels us to succor him if we can (St. Augustine). Mercy is having compassion of heart for the unfortunate and unhappy. Mercy or compassion entails to suffer the other pain as our own. To be in the place of the other is to be close to the victims of poverty, injustice, and violence.
Mercy then is not merely to feel sentimentally the pain of the other, but also to do something to relieve that pain as if it were ours. Are we obliged to do something for all the needy we meet on our daily journey of life? No one can help all persons in need and therefore we are not obliged. However, as St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, we are obliged to help one who is in urgent need.
St. Caesarius of Arles writes: There are two kinds of mercy, mercy on earth and mercy in heaven, human mercy and divine mercy. What is human mercy then? It makes you concerned for the hardships of the poor. What is divine mercy like? It forgives sinners.
Mercy is the essence of the Gospel and the key to Christian life (Cardinal Walter Kasper). May the Jubilee Year of Mercy help us all make of mercy our lifestyle!
(Published also in O Clarim, The Macau Catholic Weekly, December 2015))

A Pilgrim’s notes: Meaning of “MERRY CHRISTMAS”

A Pilgrim’s notes: Meaning of “MERRY CHRISTMAS”

A PILGRIM’S NOTES: MEANING OF “MERRY CHRISTMAS”
Fausto Gomez, OP

May you have a Merry Christmas! What does “Merry Christmas” may mean? As we prepare to celebrate this great solemnity, let me share a few notes on its various and complementary meanings.
Christmas is Christ. There cannot be a true Christmas without Christ: without Christ Christmas is merely three meaningless letters – m, a, s. Christ is the center of Christmas: the Child Jesus in a manger. It is truly awesome to realize that, as St. John writes, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us… Of his fullness we have all received.” Merry Christmas implies a happy encounter with the Child Jesus in the crib! “If you wish to see the most beautiful thing in the world,” St. John de Avila tells us, “ask the Lord to give you the eyes to see a young maiden with her child in her arms in the town of Bethlehem.”
Christmas is love of God. “God so loved the world,” St. John’s marvelous words again, “that He gave his only begotten Son.” How incredible: “The Son of God is born in eternity without mother, in time without father, and becomes our brother” (John Tauler). We respond by adoring the Child Jesus. Adoration may be our attitude through the Christmas season. It was the attitude of Mary and Joseph, of the shepherds, and of the Three Kings. Mary and Joseph kept everything in their hearts in an attitude of contemplative prayer; the shepherds knelt before the Child in the crib, and the Three Kings offered their gifts as a sign of worship. “O come, let us adore him.”
Christmas is love of neighbor. Love of Christ in the manger entails love of all neighbors, children of God and our brothers and sisters. “In this,” Jesus says, “they will know that you are my disciples, that you love one another.” True Christian love is not selective but unconditionally universal: no one is excluded, not even the enemies.
Christmas is compassionate love. “I feel compassion of the crowd,” Jesus says. Charity is universal love, merciful love for all, in particular the poor and needy, the “little ones” of Jesus. Thus, Christmas is feeling compassion for those in need and doing something to help them. It necessarily implies sharing something with the poor around us, accompanying our sick and imprisoned brothers and sisters. Jesus keeps telling you and me: “What you do to the least of my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.”
Christmas is joyful love. “This is the day our Savior was born: what a joy for us! This is no season for sadness, this, the birthday of Life, the Life which annihilates the fear of death, and engenders joy, promising as it does, immortality” (St. Leo the Great). Yes, “Christmas is joy, the joy of Life, the joy of the Gospel of Christ” (Pope Francis). Indeed, “Joy to the world, joy to you and me!”
Christmas is peaceful love. The angels sang: “Glory to God in the highest and peace to men whom God loves.” Peace, like joy and compassion, is a consequence of love. As believers in Christ, the Prince of Peace, we are asked to be peacemakers in our families, in our communities, in the world. To be peacemakers, we have to be at peace within ourselves and with God, with all neighbors and with creation, which is “our common home.”
Christmas is grateful love. Zechariah is grateful to the Lord for giving him his son John the Baptist: “Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel” (Lk 1:68). Mary, the Virgin-Mother is grateful for the marvelous things God has done to her: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” (Lk 1:46). We are grateful above all to God for giving us Jesus, his only Son and the Son of Mary. We also give thanks to so many people around us! As we wish “Merry Christmas” to our family, friends, and companions we thank them for their love, their help, for being there when we needed them, for travelling with us on the journey of life. Indeed, “gracias a la vida,” thanks to life that has given us so much!
The birth of Jesus is a magnificent event that reminds us of our Baptism, of our birth as Christians. Some years ago, I received a Christmas card with this lovely message: One day Christ was born for you, and it was Christmas. / Another day, you were born for Christ, and it was your Baptism. / When you remember the joy of Christmas / do not forget the joy of your Baptism.”
The Birth of Jesus connects closely with the Eucharist: “Mary was the first tabernacle who carried Christ within her and gave birth to the One who would say, ‘I am the living bread come down from heaven’” (Fulton Sheen).
Through Advent, as we prepare to receive Jesus in our home, we remember that when our Lord was born of the Virgin Mary, there was no room for him in the inn at Bethlehem. He is coming again at Christmas 2015. There is a lovely story of a Children’s Nativity Play (from Margaret Silf). After many rehearsals the great day of presenting the play before the proud parents of the children and parishioners came. On stage: angels, shepherds, and Mary, Joseph and the innkeeper. Mary and Joseph knock at the door of the inn and ask: “Please, can we have a room for the night?” The innkeeper answers: “Sorry, there is no room in the inn.” After saying that, however, the little innkeeper had second thoughts of his own and added something else: “Don’t go away, you can have my room.”
I ask: “Will Jesus have my room the coming Christmas? Will He have yours?” There will be no room for Baby Jesus this Christmas in the hearts of those who are selfish, proud or insensitive to the needs of others. We are all invited to approach the Sacrament of Penance and thus prepare a pure heart for the birth of the Child in the manger.
My dear co-pilgrims, I wish you Merry Christmas that is a Blessed Christmas. May the Child Jesus be born in our hearts in a deeper way, and may those around us notice it by the way we treat them with kindness and compassion.
(Published by O Clarim, the Macau Catholic Weekly, on December 18, 2015) merry-christmas

Meditation on Advent: The Lord is Coming!

Meditation on Advent: The Lord is Coming!

MEDITATION ON ADVENT: THE LORD IS COMING!
Advent and Lent are the most important seasons of the liturgical year: both prepare us for the greatest feasts of Christianity. While Lent is the time of penance and prepares Christians for Easter, Advent is the time of hope and prepares the believers in Jesus for his different comings to us.
Advent means “coming,” “arriving.” Who is coming? Jesus! Christian faith speaks of three kinds of Jesus’ coming to us: his first coming at Christmas, his intermediate or middle coming through the journey of our earthly life, and his final coming at the end of time. “In his first coming our Lord came in the flesh and in our weakness; in his middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty” (St. Bernard).
As the first Sundays of Advent remind us, Jesus will come at the end of time to judge the living and the dead – all of us. When will his final coming will take place? Nobody knows except our Father in heaven (Mt 24:36). Well, there are always some groups of Christians who keep telling us of Jesus’ immediate final coming. Someone asked Jesus: “Will few be saved?” Jesus answer to him and to us: “Keep on striving to enter through the narrow door” (Lk 13:22-24). What really matters for us is that we keep striving and try to be always prepared and ready to receive Jesus in his final coming at the end of time, and also at the end of our personal life here on earth.

Advent
There is between the coming of Christ at Christmas and his final coming at the end of the world, what St. Bernard calls “the middle coming,” which is also very important and the most frequent in our temporal life. Benedict XVI says that the middle coming takes place in a great variety of ways: “The Lord comes through his Word; he comes in the sacraments, especially in the most Holy Eucharist; he comes into my life through words or events.” He continues coming to us in a special manner in the poor and afflicted: “I was hungry and you gave me food… I was sick and you visited me” (Mt 25:35-36).
Through the liturgy of the four weeks of Advent, we Christians are reminded in particular of the coming of Christ at the end of time and, especially during the final weeks, of Jesus’ coming at Christmas. Our Lord Jesus Christ came the first time twenty one centuries ago in history, when He was born at Bethlehem, and He will come again this year in the liturgy of Christmas.
How do we prepare properly for the different comings of Christ into our lives? The Church invites us through Advent to acquire and deepen a hopeful attitude, which is really the attitude of life: we are pilgrims on the way to our God’s home. Christian hope is not “a pie in the sky,” but a commitment to change the present – our present. Rooted in the past, looking towards the future, Christian hope concentrates on the present, on the “now”: God, the object of our hope is “the eternal now” (Hebr 3:7-8). The only thing in our hands is not the past or the future but the present. To be truly hopeful a Christian – and other believers – tries earnestly to be faithful to the present moment: “I just keep concentrating on the present moment… An instant is a treasure. Let us see each instant as if there were no other” (St. Therese of the Child Jesus). What does it mean to live the present, this moment as if there were no other? It means to do what we have to do every moment, every “now” with love. We journey to the house of our Father with steps of love.
To be truly hopeful entails to be vigilant, that is, to be watchful: to see with the eyes of faith and love the realities of our life and our society, and try to transform ourselves and communities according to the values of the Gospel, including justice, solidarity and compassion. To be vigilant, to keep awake means to fight evil, sin, which is always a betrayal of God’s love. Sins of selfishness, pride, lust, insensibility to the needs of the poor are not steps forward or God-ward on our journey of life and of Advent, but steps backward. To be vigilant includes to be temperate by not allowing the body, or our passions, to lead us: “The body under the spirit and the spirit under God.” To be hopeful and vigilant, we are asked to be always motivated by love – of God, of neighbors, of the needy neighbors.
To prepare properly for the encounter with the Lord, we have to be prayerful: “To prepare the way means to pray well; it means thinking humbly of oneself” (St. Augustine). To be humbly prayerful means to ask the Lord constantly for his grace and graces for we are weak: “If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders toil” (Ps 127:1); “the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom should I fear?” (Ps 27:1). The Eucharist in particular is our especial nourishment for the pilgrimage.
Advent then is a time to prepare for the middle comings of Jesus, his final coming, and most proximately for Christmas. Indeed, the Lord is near!
May Isaiah, the prophet of Advent, Luke, the evangelist of the New Liturgical Year (2015-2016: C), and Mary, Our Lady of Hope accompany us on the journey of Advent!
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
(Published by O Clarim, Macau November 27, 2015)
FAUSTO GOMEZ, OP

Called to be Saints

Called to be Saints

CALLED TO BE SAINTS

On November 1 of every year, Christians celebrate joyfully the Feast of All Saints: the canonized and beatified by our Holy Mother Church and the (not just multitude but) megatude of anonymous saints who lived a holy life, including members of our families, especially our mothers. On the eleventh month of every year, we are reminded of our vocation to holiness.
Vatican II underlines that all Christians are called to holiness, that is, to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity. (Cf. Vatican II, Lumen Gentium, LG, 40; Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC, 2013)
Holiness is loving union with God. For us Christians, holiness is loving union with God the Father, through Jesus Christ the Son of God, and in the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Consoler who is the love of the Father and the Son. Loving union with Christ is called “mystical union, because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments – ‘the holy mysteries’ – and, in Him, in the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.” All Christians are called to the mystical union with Christ, although only some receive special graces or extraordinary signs of the mystical life (CCC 2014).
The Holy Spirit, the sanctifier, is the agent of holiness. To Him, holiness is appropriated. (See LG, chapter V). The union with God is union of love with God (vertical dimension). It is also union of love with all neighbors (horizontal dimension).

4.2.7

4.2.7

Holiness is a gift of God. As free human beings, we are asked to respond freely to this gift. Our response is our availability: we have to be available like the Virgin Mary and the saints. Our available cooperation means to say yes to God, to his grace that calls us to holiness, to perfection, to happiness; in a word, to do the will of God always. Holiness entails a graceful life, a virtuous life: a life grounded on grace, practiced in virtues, above all the virtue of charity as love of God and neighbor.
The way of holiness passes through the cross. “There is no holiness without renunciation and spiritual battle” (II Tim 4). Spiritual progress implies self-denial and mortification. These lead gradually to live in the peace and joy of the Beatitudes (CCC, 2015). As Christians, we are called to be transfigured on the mountain of our life. This transfiguration, like the Transfiguration of Christ (Mt 17:1-9) gives strength to walk patiently and even joyfully our Way of the Cross.
St. Robert’s father told him: “Son, the only mistake we make in life is not to be a saint.” Indeed, as French convert Leon Bloy says, “There is sadness, only one: the sadness of not being a saint.” Bloy asked himself: “Is it hard to be a saint?” His answer: “No, just one step beyond mediocrity and you are a saint.” Well, perhaps, a few steps!
How to become a saint? By the sacrament of Baptism we become holy in our being as Christians. By our practice of faith we become holy and holier in our life. St. Paul advises us: Live “as is proper for God’s holy people” (Eph 5:3); be clothed with “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Col 3:12); do the will of God in all things, even – like Jesus – by being “obedient unto death, even to death on the cross” (Phil 2:7-8).
We become saints by being authentic followers of Jesus Christ, the Holy One. Jesus is our way of holiness, and his virtuous life, the path of holiness. The practice of virtues make us holy and happy. Following Jesus, we imitate his prayerful, merciful and selfless life, his boundless love for all, in particular the poor, sick and abandoned. With God’s grace and love, we try to love God and neighbor as Christ loves us (cf. Jn 13:34; LG 42).
Holiness is one: loving union with Christ in the Church, which is holy. However the paths of holiness are many and each one is called to follow the best path for him or her, that is, his or her personal vocation. A single person, a married couple, a religious woman, a priest or a cardinal are all called by the Lord to imitate him essentially in the same way and individually according to the specific path each one is called to follow Jesus. We remember always that all the saints, headed by Mary who is above all saints, point to Jesus. St. Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, a great devotee of Our Lady writes: “If you call Mary, the echo is Jesus.”
Let us be devoted to the Blessed Trinity. Let us be good children of Mary our Mother. Let us venerate the saints of our devotion and imitate their virtues. Let us realize that according to the tradition of the Church guardian angels protect us when facing dangers, and intercede for us before God.
May Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and the saints of our personal devotion accompany us on the journey of life to heaven – to a life in God One and Triune, in Jesus, in the company of Mary and the saints and our family and friends, and the whole company of heaven!
Hard to be a saint? Just a few steps beyond mediocrity. With God’s grace, we try to journey always with steps of love!
(Published by O Clarim, October 23, 2015)

FAUSTO GOMEZ, OP

A pilgrim’s notes: The moment matters!  

A pilgrim’s notes: The moment matters!  

 Some years ago, a well-known Japanese Dominican, Fr. Shigeto Oshida, stayed at the University of Santo Tomas (UST), Manila for a few days. He had a series of lectures to pronounce at the University’s Faculty of Theology. We knew each other much earlier and had become good friends. Before leaving UST, Fr. Oshida told me: “Fausto, where are you going? You seem to be always on the move, going somewhere! Enjoy the moment, smell the flowers …” I realized then that I was not giving sufficient importance to this moment because I was always looking to the next thing to do – to the next moment!

A renewed understanding of hope – human as well as Christian – has helped me through the years to become increasingly aware of the unique significance of the moment, the day, this day and this moment.

I wish to share with you some of the thoughts and practices I have learned and continue learning as a pilgrim with a thousand hopes on the way to God, who is the hope.

 TODAY

Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was asked, “What are your plans for the future?” She answered: “I do not have plans for the future; I only care about today, for today is the day I have to love Jesus.” St. Francis of Sales advises us: “Live one day at a time, leaving the rest in God’s care”; “Go along with confidence in divine Providence, worrying only about the present day and leaving your heart in the Lord’s care.”

The Psalmist invites us: Today listen to his voice, harden not your hearts! (Ps 95:7-8).Today, not yesterday, not tomorrow! Today, harden not your heart by not listening to God’s voice, that is, by not doing good or by doing evil, by being selfish or envious or unforgiving; these harden our hearts.

We listen to God’s voice today for today is the day the Lord has made for us, a day to rejoice and be glad” (Ps 118:24). Today is God’s time for us (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, CCC 2659). “Today is the day of salvation” (II Cor 6:2), of universal salvation (Acts 2:39). It is not yesterday: “In last year’s nest there are no birds this year” (Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha). It is not tomorrow: “The biggest obstacle of life is the hope of tomorrow and the loss of today” (Seneca).  The prophet of Nazareth tells us: “Do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Mt 6:34). The wise man says, “Do not leave for tomorrow what you can do today,” and St. John Bosco comments: “Do not put off till tomorrow the good you can do today. You may not have a tomorrow.”

What is the meaning of “today”? In the Old Testament, “today” is the time for a blessing, for obedience to God, for salvation; contrarily, it may become – if we harden our hearts – a time for a curse, disobedience, perdition. In the New Testament, we are told, the word “today” is used forty times, half of them in Luke. Jesus is born “today” (Lk 2:11). “Today” this Sacred Scripture is fulfilled, Jesus says in a Synagogue (Lk 4:21). Jesus tells us that “the Kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mk 1:14-15), that is the Kingdom of heaven is “now.” Today Jesus encounters the sinner Zacchaeus:  “Zacchaeus, come down (the sycamore tree); hurry, because I am to stay at your house today” (Lk 19:5). One of the disciples of Jesus wished to follow him later not today: he wanted to take care of his father first. Jesus tells him: “Follow me,” that is not tomorrow but today, not later but now! (Mt 8:21-22). From the Cross, Jesus tells the good thief crucified near him: “Today you will be with me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43). Today in the Bible means the day of God’s visitation (Lk 12:54). For the Christian, the believer “today” is not just the chronological day, chronos, marked by the calendar but a theological or spiritual day, a kairos: God’s grace and love. Moreover, today implies for beleivers “obedience and abandonment to the plan of God (Massimo Grilli, 2013).

God talks to us today in his Son Jesus Christ, our Savior. God the Father tells us today what he told Peter, John and James at the Mountain of Transfiguration: “This is my Son, listen to him.” To listen to Jesus means to follow him, to practice our Christian faith: He who listens to these words of mine, Jesus tells us today, “He who listens to these words of mine and acts upon them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock”(Mt 7:24).

Daily we pray: “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Mt 6:11). This petition of the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father “reminds us that all we have comes from God” (St. Thomas Aquinas). We ask God the Father, Our Father every day to give us the bread of grace, the Bread of the Eucharist (Jn 6:51), the bread of God’s Word (Mt 4:4), and the bread or food this day. “Give us”: not only to you and to me, but also to our brothers and sisters, particularly those who have no bread and with whom we have to share our bread.

God is talking to us today. We pray to him: Please Lord save us from sin today (“Dignare Domine die isto sine peccato nos custodire,” in the Te Deum).  We listen to him. Where is God speaking to us?  He speaks to us in his wonderful creation. God, Yahweh is the Lord of creation – of the earth, the mountains, the ocean… (Ps 95) Everything has beauty, Confucius says, “but not everyone sees it.” May God help us to see the beauty of his creation! Who is not moved by the breathtaking beauty of St. John of the Cross’ verses from his Spiritual Canticle? “Pouring out a thousand graces, / He passed these groves in haste; / And having looked at them, / With his image alone, / Clothed them in beauty. – The tranquil night / At the time of the rising dawn, / Silent music, / Sounding solitude, / The supper that refreshes, and deepens love.”

The voice of God speaks in our conscience (cf. John Pau II, Encyclical Veritatis Splendor 58), a good conscience that discerns the present hour by reading the signs of the times (Mt 16:1-3), the signs which are messengers of God, the signs of our time: solidarity, non-violence, spirituality, dialogue, respect for creation, preferential love for the poor and marginalized of our world.

God talks to us in the depth of our heart, in silent and contemplative prayer. “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening” (1 S 3:10). Yes, “I will keep silent and let God speak within” (Meister Eckhart). We listen to the voice of God in our liturgical prayer: “For where two or three meet in my name, I am there among them…”  (Mt 18:20). We hear the voice of Jesus, our Savior, in the Eucharistic celebration: “This is my Body…”; “This is the chalice of my Blood” (Eucharistic Prayers). Theologian Karl Rahner advises us to “pray the everyday,” to pray and not mind whether we like it or not, just pray; he adds, “beware of the person who doesn’t pray” (Cf. Karl Rahner, The Need and Blessing of Prayer, 1997).

We hear God’s voice in the others, in our brothers and sisters, particularly in those who suffer, are abandoned or hungry. These are the proxies of Christ (St. Basil): “I was hungry, and you gave me food; thirsty, and you gave me a glass of water …” (cf. Mt 25:35).

To concentrate on today does not mean to forget yesterday: this day is grounded on our days past. Nor does it mean to forget tomorrow: we are pilgrims on the way to God. As our memory is the present of the past, our hope is the present of the future (St. Augustine). The Eucharist illustrates perfectly the necessary links among yesterday, today and tomorrow: it is memorial of the passion of Christ (yesterday); pledge of future glory (tomorrow), and grace every day (today). Our Christian life is a dynamic tension between the past and the future lived in the present: a journey from the already of the death and resurrection of Christ to the not yet of eternal happiness by living this day passionately and compassionately as God’s creatures and children.

The poet mystic Kahlil Gibran writes: “Yet the timeless of you is aware of life’s timelessness, and knows; / And knows that yesterday is but to-day’s memory and to-morrow is to-day’s dream. / And let to-day embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing” (K. Gibran, The Prophet).

Today then does matter much in our life – in our daily life.

 THE MOMENT

When she was very young, St. Therese of the Child Jesus was worried about the future. After she became a Carmelite nun, she focused her life on the present moment: “I just keep concentrating on the present moment. I forget the past, and preserve myself from worries about the future… When one thinks of the past and the future one loses courage and falls into despair… Let us turn our single moment of suffering to profit; let us see each instant as if there were no other. An instant is a treasure.”  Jesus continues telling us to “take up your cross every day,” each moment, now (cf. Lk 9:22-25).

The Zen Master says: “The past is unreal; the future is unreal too; only the moment is real. Life is a series of moments, either lived or lost.”  Indeed, life is a series of moments either lived or lost! This is also the well-known philosophy and discipline of philosophers, saints and athletes, for instance, tennis player Rafa Nadal who has often being asked what is the secret of his total commitment to the game he is playing. Rafa’s answer: “I give my most every point, every game, and every set.” His nemesis, the great player Novak Djokovic was asked what he admired most in Nadal. His answer: “His competitive spirit; he has the ability to play every point as if it were the last point of the game.” Our life is like a game to be played this moment as if it were the last point this moment, this day, and this year – of life. “Our appointment with life is in the present moment. The place of our appointment is right here, in this very place” (Thich Nhat Hanh).  True freedom entails doing “what the present moment demands, what we owe to ourselves and to our neighbors” (Anselm Grun).

To listen to God’s voice in our life entails to live the moment fully, that is, to be faithful to the moment, to this moment, which is the only thing in our hands.  The “now” is what matters. God is the eternal now, and He talks to us in different ways. Our Lady and her cousin Elizabeth listened to God’s voice and deeply felt God’s presence. When Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, she was deeply surprised by the visit of the most blessed of all women and said: “The moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy” (Lk 1:43-44). On that moment, the two women heard God’s voice and felt his presence.

To be faithful to the moment implies to live the moment in God’s presence. God says to Abraham: “Live in my presence, be perfect” (Gen 17:1). Indeed, the moment for believers is the moment in God’s presence: “What essentially matters is the presence of God in every moment of our life once it becomes oriented towards God, just as a flower rotates in the direction of the sun throughout the day” (Y. Congar).

A holy man and mystic who lived every moment in God’s presence was the Carmelite brother Lawrence of the Resurrection (+1691), who left us a marvelous book of spirituality entitled The Practice of the Presence of God. He practiced the presence of God every moment, all the time; this practice, which is not easy but possible with perseverance, became a holy habit. He explains: Through this holy habit, “we take delight in and become accustomed to God’s divine company, speaking humbly and talking lovingly with him at all times, at every moment, without rule or system and specially at times of temptation, suffering, spiritual aridity, disgust and even unfaithfulness and sin.” The habit of the continuing presence of God is a form of prayer that unites the person with God every moment of life, whether one is praying or working. Every moment permeated by God’s presence is a moment of grace and mercy (Cf. Peter John Cameron, OP, The Classics of Catholic Spirituality, 1996)

We surrender to God’s Providence every moment, which is called by the Jesuit mystic Jean-Pierre de Caussade (18th Century) “the sacrament of the moment.” In his masterpiece of spirituality Abandonment to Divine Providence (collection of writings from 1729 to 1739), he writes: “Every moment we live through is like an ambassador who declares the will of God”; “Every moment reveals God to us”; “What God arranged for us to experience at each moment is the best and holiest thing that could happen to us.” Therefore, we are advised by the French mystic to “seize what each moment brings and then forget it, eager only to be alert to respond to God and live for him alone”; “Each moment brings a duty which must be faithfully fulfilled.” The path of life to happiness is “to live only for God and the duties of the present moment.”

In his book of essays Faith and Spiritual Life (1969), Yves Congar  meditates on the intercessory prayer “Holy Mary, Mother of God,” and in particular on the words: “now and at the hour of our death.” What really matters, he explains, is “the vertical relationship of every moment of our life with God our End that makes these moments holy and acceptable to him.” He continues: “This immediate relationship with God which occurs in every day and every moment – and finally in the last moment – of our lives, is incorporated like grace and holiness in Christ.” To pray daily, every moment means to be aware of the continuing presence of God and of our own vulnerability and sinfulness. We ask Mary, Mother of God, Mother of Mercy and our Mother to “pray for us sinners, now …” St. Ephraem the deacon prayed: Do not take away from our minds, Lord, / the signs of your spiritual presence / and do not withdraw from our bodies / the warmth and delight of your presence.

Life is indeed a series of moments that form a chain that leads forward. Every moment is very important. There are, however, some moments that possess a special significance, such as, the moment of birth, the moment of commitment – to marriage, to a religious life, to a priestly ordination, to a profession – and the last moment. Albert Camus said that “people die and are not happy.” Some – or many – people perhaps are unhappy because they have to die and are too afraid of the last moment.

There is an essential use of the word moment when referring to life itself, particularly to its beginning and its end. Christians believe in the sacredness of human life and are guided by an ethical principle grounded in Sacred Scriptures and in Tradition: “Human life must be defended from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.” Our life is sacred: God created us; God governs us; God adopted us in Jesus as his children, and destined us to eternal life with him. Our life, therefore, is sacred and ought to be defended and promoted from its first moment (against abortion) to its last (against suicide, homicide, euthanasia and the death penalty), and in the series of moments in-between its first and last moments (against violence, injustice, forced poverty). A dignified human life is promoted by the essential values of freedom, truth, justice and solidarity.

Paulo Coelho of The Alchemist fame says that once in a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (Spain), he had to go through an exercise and had to face his death. Then he realized that death is not the end of life but his best friend. He envisions his death as a beautiful woman who once told him: “I am going to kiss you,”, and he said to her: “Not now, please.” OK, the woman answered, not now, and added: “But pay attention and try to get the best of every moment because I am going to take you.” “OK,” I told her, and added: “Thank you for giving me the most important advice in life: to live your moment fully.”

For Christ, the last moment is “the hour,” the moment of victory, of his triumphant death on the Cross – the Cross of Hope that points to his Resurrection (cf. Mk 14:35; Jn 2:4, 7:30, 12:27, 17:1, etc.). For us Christians, therefore, “the hour” is the last moment of our earthly life, which as Yves Congar affirms, “is essentially relative to another life, the true everlasting life”: the last moment ushers in death, that is, another life – eternal life. In Christian tradition, death is in friendly relationship with life; death is the end of life, but “not in the sense of its conclusion but of its fulfillment; death is the fusion of two lives.” Congar continues: We should not be scared of death; what matters is that this moment is “lived in God’s presence,” as a moment of love and of union with the death of Christ. To live so, we pray to Mary, our Mother often: “Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

The moment of death then has a special significance and impact on our lives. On one hand, we do not forget death, and, on the other, we are not obsessed by it: death is part of life. Those among us who believe in the afterlife, like the Christians, ask themselves from time to time: If we were told right now: “You have two hours to live,” what would we do? We would prepare well, of course! Is not our personal life a sequence of many “two-hour” periods?  (J. M. Cabodevilla). Through the night of life we ask, “Watchman, how much longer the night?” (Is 21:11); “True, holy Master, how much longer you will wait?” (Rev 6:10). We do not know, and therefore, we have to be prepared all the time, every day, every “hour,” every moment, now: “Now is the real time of favor; now is the day of salvation” (2 Cor 6:2). St. John of the Cross advises us:  “Because before you die you will be sorry for not employing this time in God’s service, why don’t you use it well as you would have liked to when you were dying?” (Sayings of Light and Love, 76)

HOPEFUL MOMENTS: STEPS OF LOVE

There was a famous and holy Rabbi, Rabbi Mokshe. After he died, Rabbi Mendel asked one of Mokshe’s disciples: “What did your teacher give the greatest importance to?” The disciple answered: “To whatever he happened to be doing at the moment.”

What matters in our whole life then is to be faithful to the moment. St John of the Cross says in Ascent to Mount Carmel (I, cha. 13, 3), when speaking on how to go up the night of the senses (how to win over the senses), gives us his first advice: “First thing is to have an ordinary appetite for imitating Christ and do all the things that He would do.” One is faithful to the moment, then, by imitating Christ every moment. A modern spiritual writes proposes that an easy way to go up the ladder of holiness – of happiness – is to ask repeatedly this question: What would Jesus do in my place? That is, what would the Lord do today, now, this very moment? Hence, another way of expressing our fidelity to the moment, besides God’s presence in every moment, is the following and imitation of Christ.  Our following and imitation of the Lord focuses on love: on his unconditional love for God the Father and for all human beings, particularly the needy and poor.

To imitate Jesus in the moment is to love as Jesus does every moment of our life. The quality of our moment is measured by our love – of God, neighbor and needy neighbor. To be faithful to the moment signifies to do what we ought to do with love; to carry out our daily duties and obligations with love (Segundo Galilea). “God does not look at the grandeur of the work we do, but at the love we put into it” (St. Teresa of Avila).

Hence, what matters most in life is love, yes, a hopeful love, because we are on a pilgrimage. Faithful love is hopeful, a love which is “always ready to hope” (I Cor 13:7). After all, “Love is to share the same hope” (R. Follerau). The Psalmist prays: “”Lord, let your faithful love rest on us, as our hope has rested in you” (Ps 33:22). Truly, as Christians we cannot hope without faith, and hope and faith have little value without charity. Hope is the virtue of the pilgrim; without it, we cannot go on meaningfully. Through this earthly life, we are all pilgrims – hopeful pilgrims. True hope, however, is not “a pie in the sky” but fidelity to the present, to today, to ‘now’, to this moment, which is the only thing we actually possess. With the passing of time “one realizes that the best was not the future, but the moment you were living precisely at that instant!” ((José Luis Borges).

For a pilgrim to eternal life, for a citizen of heaven expecting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 3:20),  to be faithful to the moment implies walking forward in hope with steps of love, journeying to a new beginning, a new life: “Look, I am doing something new, now it emerges, can you not see it? (Is 43:19) In his Spiritual Diary, Saint John XXIII begins many daily entries with these words: “Only for today…” For him, for us, life is a series of todays, of moments. He writes that “every day is a good day to be born and every day is a good day to die.” Therefore, as Christians we love today – this moment-, as something given to us by God. With the example of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, we are not afraid today, we do our duty today, we put love in everything we do today, we are compassionate today, we are  grateful today, we are happy today, now!

Carpe diem the Romans used to say, that is seize the day, live this day, the moment the best you can: the unseized moments do not come back; procrastination means the loss of golden opportunities. For Christians and other believers and non-believers, carpe diem implies fidelity to the moment, that is,  to put love in everything we do, in everything: big or small, public or secret; in prayer, in work, in walking, in a smile, in a failure – in suffering.

To be faithful to this day means to live the day, to seize the moment as pilgrims do, that is, as people on the way to the house of the Father in heaven. We never forget that we are on the way and that every day, every moment well lived is a step forward to eternal life, which is the object of our hope, of our pilgrimage. Joyful in hope (Rom 12:12}, “striving towards the goal of resurrection from the dead” (Phil 3:11), “racing towards the finishing-point” (Phil 3:14), we journey on with steps of love towards the embrace of Jesus the Lord, who is our way every day, every moment (cf. Jn 14:6). Thus for Christians and others, “today is always not yet” (Hoy siempre es todavía – Antonio Machado).

“Trust the past in God’s mercy, the present to his love, and the future to his providence” (St. Augustine). We try to live our lives, our hopes, our moments permeated by love and hope in anticipation of eternal life. When we fail, when we do not hear God’s voice and harden our heart – we are sinners -, then the moment is the moment of repentance and of God’s forgiveness.

As pilgrims, and always with God’s grace and love, we attempt persistently to be faithful to the moment: we try to experience the presence of God every moment of the day; we make efforts to imitate Christ the Lord; we work hard always to put love in everything we do. As co-pilgrims, we march forward to our destination. St. Gregory the Great advises us: “Only a foolish traveler, when he sees pleasant fields on his way, forgets to go on towards his destination” (Hom 14, 3-6).  Christians, “though they are residents at home in their own countries, their behavior there is more like that of transients… Their days are passed on the earth, but their citizenship is above in the heavens…Christians inhabit the world, but they are not part of the world” (Letter to Diognetus, AD 130). With St. Paul we say: “I give no thought to what lie behind, but push on to what is ahead” (Phil 3:13): “Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Cor 2:9) – for those who love him with faithful hope every day, every moment, this very instant.

(The original version was published by Boletin Eclesiatico de Filipinas, Vol. XCI, No. 910, March-April, 2015: 153-162)

 

Fausto Gómez-Berlana, OP

St. Dominic’s Priory, Macau