Quit, Adjust, Or Stay the Course

Third Sunday of Advent

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  The Introit/Entrance Antiphon today tells us to rejoice.  In fact, the name we often give this Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, from the Latin first word: the command form of the verb “rejoice.”  As a way of reinforcing this idea that we are to rejoice, the penitential and more somber violet gives way to a slightly lighter shade called rose (not pink).  
    We rejoice, all the liturgical guides tell us, because Advent is more than halfway over.  But as I thought about it, being more than halfway done with something is encouraging, but I wouldn’t necessarily say I would rejoice.  I thought about working out, especially cross-fit-style exercises: I am happy to be at set six out of ten.  But I’m still in the midst of the workout, and often times I’m fairly gassed by then.  I rejoice when I’m done with the workout and have successfully conquered the challenge that (more often than not) others set out for me.
    And maybe you’re on the same page when it comes to Advent.  Even though we are more than halfway done, we’re still in the midst of it all.  Two weeks ago I challenged us to be attentive to how Christ comes to us and to non-Catholics, as well as making sure we help others recognize Christ as He comes to them.  How are we doing with that?  Last week I encouraged us to hope: to focus on eternal salvation and allow the theological virtue to carry us through challenges that come to us each week or maybe even each day.  How have we exercised that virtue of hope?  Maybe Advent has felt like one of my workouts: we give a lot of ourselves, but we’re getting tired and worn out, even though we haven’t finished yet.

    But, like a workout, the key is to finish.  Of course, with Advent, we can’t stop time, and Christmas will come.  But the way we celebrate will correlate to how we finished.  Our options are: give up; adjust; or keep the same pace.  
    Giving up is an option.  It’s not a good option, but it’s an option.  There have been workouts where I’m giving my all, and maybe pushing myself a bit more than I should (especially when I’m working out with someone who is much better shape than I), and then I get to the sixth or seventh round, and I’m gassed.  I remember one workout where we were supposed to deadlift 225 pounds for three reps in one minute, then ride an assault bike for one minute for as many calories as possible, and then get a rest for a minute, and repeat this for ten rounds.  I really pushed myself, trying to keep up with my partner on the assault bike, so that after three rounds, I struggled to keep my breath.  By round six I felt like I had nothing left.  So when round 7 began, I had convinced myself that I couldn’t go on anymore, and I was going to quit.  The minute started for my deadlifts, and I sat on the bench, catching my breath.  I told my partner that I couldn’t go on.  I wanted to quit, and others may have.
    But quitting means that we’re out.  And while a workout is mostly inconsequential, when it comes to our faith, quitting means that we abandon God.  And that’s not a recipe for eternal life.  God never quits on us; He stays with us, no matter how weak or tired we feel we are.  And if we can give even some small bit, God will help us be successful.
    In that particular workout, I dug deep, and made myself finish.  But I had to adjust, which is our second choice.  My calories on the assault bike dropped somewhat significantly.  In other workouts, including one I did just last week, I set a goal that I thought I could attain, doing a squat to shoulder press with 30 pound dumbbells for ten reps, then riding an assault bike for 10 calories, and using the ski machine for 15 calories, each in one minute.  But by round four I realized that my original estimate was unrealistic.  So I had to adjust.  I dropped from ten reps with the dumbbells to eight.  It still pushed me, but I didn’t feel like my arms were going to give out.  My calories on the assault bike also dropped a bit.  But I didn’t give up.  I adjusted my original goals to reflect reality.  
    Maybe this Advent we have set very adventurous goals for our spiritual growth, and we’ve grown a little frustrated because we haven’t achieved those goals yet.  Don’t give up; adjust.  Sometimes we think we have more than we truly have.  We can lower our expectations without stopping altogether.  And when it comes to our relationship with God, continuing the fight, even if we slightly alter our goals, means that we’re doing our best to still respond to God’s grace which makes any good work possible.  Victory may not look like we originally intended, but we can still get a victory that challenged us and helped us to grow in our relationship with God.
    Lastly, sometimes we just keep our same goals.  Sometimes I have had times where I wanted to quit, but I didn’t, and I didn’t even adjust my goals.  My goals challenged me, and I wanted to give up or lower the goals, but I pushed through kept going for all the rounds at the original expectations.  And when I finished, I was so proud that I kept pushing through.  Sometimes when we face challenges in our spiritual life, we have what it takes, we just need to push ourselves.  We struggle, but we don’t give up and don’t let up, and then when the challenges pass, the victory feels all the sweeter.  
    God’s grace can help us succeed even when we think we will fail.  We rejoice at that success, but then we increase our goals, because, like working out, we’re never done; there’s always more we can do.  We can always love God and our neighbor more; we can always respond better to God’s grace; we can always trust God more and abandon our wills to His.  We rejoice at our victories that we have had thus far, and then set new goals that push us more and more.
    And maybe that’s why the Church has us rejoice today.  No doubt, we have had success this Advent in recognizing Christ as He came to us and to those we know.  I’m sure we have hoped even when we wanted to doubt.  Rejoice in those goals you have accomplished by the grace of God.  But do not rest on your laurels.  Because we’re not done.  We’re not done with Advent until Christmas, and we’re not done growing in our spiritual life until we die or until Christ returns in glory.  But, if we have given our all this Advent; if we have given our all in life, then Christmas and the end of time will be the time of complete rejoicing that we have responded to God’s election of us, and that we are achieving faith’s goal: our salvation.  [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.] 

No Spirit of Slavery and Fear

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  A week or so ago I felt a little overwhelmed with all the stuff that had to get accomplished, and frustrated with things that I wanted to go a particular way and didn’t.  As I sometimes do, I called up my best friend to vent a little bit and hopefully get a little sympathy.  After I had finished my pity party, and explaining how tough my life was at that point, my friend said something to the effect of: “You act like life is supposed to be easy, and that you’re supposed to be perfectly happy on this earth.  Life is a fight until we hopefully make it to Purgatory or Heaven, and then we can rest easy and not have to struggle.”  What my friend lacks in empathy, he makes up for in straightforwardness.  
    I thought of that as I prepared my homily because of this line from St. Paul: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but a spirit of adoption, through which we cry out, Abba (Father).”  When we look at the state of the world, and even sometimes the state of the Church (or at least parts of the Church), it can be very easy to give in to this mentality of “woe is me!”  We live in a fallen world, and so many things are not the way that they should be.  Further, as the world turns more and more away from Christ, the battle for us intensifies and calls for more fortitude to be loving but firm witnesses to the Gospel.  We also have to deal with others’ sinfulness and sinful actions (just as others have to deal with our own sinfulness and sinful actions), and it gets tiring.  And then there are simply the things that don’t go according to plan, not because of any ill will, but simply because our world is fallen and things don’t always go the way we intend or hope.

    How easy to wallow in the mud of self-pity!  And yet, we did not receive a spirit of fear, but a spirit of adoption, which gives us courage to keep fighting.  God does not call us to cower, but to fight on, each day, for His kingdom.  To return to the “Lord of the Rings,” which I reference all too often, we are each Frodo, carrying a heavy burden to Mount Doom, so that the world can be made right and evil can be vanquished.  And sometimes we say to Sam (those walking with us to Mount Doom) that we’re tired, that we can’t make it.  Sometimes Sam even has to carry us.  But in the end, Frodo finds strength to complete his task.
    Or, to reference another set of DVDs I own, I think back to EZ company in the HBO series, “Band of Brothers.”  Their task was monumental.  Nazi forces were well-positioned all throughout Europe, and fortified against external attacks.  Europe seemed lost.  But the men of EZ company decided to jump out of planes that were going to flying into Nazi-occupied France so that the men who would be storming the beaches of Normandy that following morning would have a better chance to establish their own foothold, from which they could liberate Europe.  EZ company had great victories, like on D-Day, but they also had epic failures, like Operation Markt Garden in Holland.  Days stretched into weeks which stretched into months which stretched into D-Day plus 336 days.  They sometimes didn’t have enough ammunition, were surrounded, lost friends, had to train new paratroopers, and even had to put up with bad leaders.  But they never gave up.  They never surrendered.  They kept fighting on.

    While we can apply this analogy aptly to the world, it also applies to our own spiritual life.  Our own souls are often battlefields, or have paths that lead to attitudes or habits that are contrary to God.  It seems like we all-too-often try to root out the same sins, sometimes taking two steps forward and one step back, or even one step forward and two steps back.  Opening ourselves to God’s grace to allow Him to sanctify us seems like a path that will never end, and fatigue can hit us after trying so hard and not always achieving the success we desire.
    In the midst of that, keep that phrase that we heard today in your mind: “God did not give us a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.”  In Confirmation, the Holy Spirit gave us many gifts, including the gift of fortitude.  Fortitude is the virtue which helps us to keep pressing on when something is hard, to continue to fight in the face of danger, to stand up for what is right, no matter the cost.  If today weren’t a Sunday, we would celebrate St. Apollinaris in the 1962 calendar.  He was a disciple of St. Peter, and traveled with him from Antioch (where Peter founded a local church) to Rome.  He was then made the bishop of Ravenna, and preached the Gospel, while enduring many persecutions.  The pagans locked him in prison and exiled him.  St. Apollinaris died by being beaten to death in AD 79.  St. Apollinaris, like all of the martyrs, are great witnesses to us of what our acceptance of the gift of fortitude can look like if we seek it.  In those early days of the church, not much went as the Christians hoped.  Many rejected their message of the Gospel.  Those who did accept it often struggled with leaving their old life behind (as we especially hear from St. Paul in his epistles to the Corinthians).  Some converts tried to mix their pagan beliefs in with the Gospel (which is where Gnosticism starts to appear).  And more often than not, being a public follower of Christ meant imprisonment or exile at best, and, very likely, execution in a horrible manner at worst.  But they kept it up.  Not because it was easy; not because they were as successful as they wanted to be; not because everything went well, but because they had the spirit of adoption as sons and daughters in the Son of God.  And they knew that remaining faithful as God’s children was worth any punishment or seeming failure that could happen.  
    So today, recommit yourselves, as I also will do, to bringing the light of Christ into a world that prefers darkness.  Recommit yourselves, as I also will do, to staying faithful to Christ when so many walk away from Him.  Do not give in to the spirit of slavery and fall back into fear, but stand strong in the spirit of adoption as co-heirs with Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Going Deeper

 Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    We, as Americans are very pragmatic.  “Just tell me what I have to do,” could easily be an American mantra.  When we see a goal, we want to know how to achieve it.  The rich young man had this same sort of mentality.  He asked Jesus, “‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  What do I have to do?

    Jesus gives him a fairly straightforward answer: follow the Commandments.  And we should take this to heart.  If we live a life that follows what God revealed as part and parcel of being a member of His Chosen People, then we can have some assurance that we’re on the right path.  But the rich young man already follows the Commandments, and he still feels like there’s more to it than that.  So he asks if there’s anything else, and Jesus responds that the man should sell what he has, give it to the poor, and the follow Jesus more closely.  But the man cannot, because he loved his possessions more than eternal life.
    There is no sense in this Gospel that the man was trying to trick Jesus, or that Jesus was trying to trick the man.  What we heard was an honest exchange between a person who wants to go to heaven, and the one who could reveal how to do that.  In fact, in giving the rich young man the extended call of following Jesus, Mark is clear that Jesus loved the rich young man, and the call that followed was a result of Jesus’ love.  The tragedy of it all is that the man cannot bring himself to follow through with the call beyond the call: what do to when the Ten Commandments are being obeyed.
     When it comes to the spiritual life, there is never “I’ve done enough.”  Yes, the Ten Commandments are the basics of living a God-centered life: love God above all else, keep His Name holy, honor God on the Sabbath, and do not harm your neighbor through murder, adultery, lying, stealing, or envy.  Perhaps some of you have achieved that goal, and you don’t find yourselves breaking the face-value sense of the Commandments.  Praise God!
    But if you have mastered the Decalogue, then Christ invites you to something deeper.  It may not mean giving up all your possessions, but it always means following Christ more closely in your particular vocation.  Even when it comes to the Commandments, Jesus, in teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, goes beyond the face value.  No longer can one simply say, “I haven’t murdered anyone,” but one must consider whether or not one holds a grudge against a neighbor, or insults a neighbor.  No longer is it sufficient to not have sex with someone else’s spouse, one is not to look at another with lust.  And so, for all the Ten Commandments, there are deeper considerations, deeper ways of following Jesus.  
    For the rich young man, it meant giving up money, and that was hard because the man loved his money.  But for us it can mean giving up a grudge, or stopping the practice of keeping up with the Joneses, or working on how we talk about others or think about others, or spending more time in prayer.  For all of us, there are ways that we can go deeper in our spiritual life, but we have to make it a priority.
    Doing this by ourselves is very difficult.  Almost from the beginning, everyday Christians looked towards spiritual guides to help them live that deeper life beyond the Commandments.  Very quickly those guides were given titles of respect, Abba or Amma, Father or Mother, as in Abba Anthony (St. Anthony of the Desert) or Amma Mary (St. Mary of Egypt).  Throughout the centuries saints have guided everyday people to go deeper.  For this reason we talk about Benedictine, or Dominican, or Franciscan, or Ignatian spirituality.  
    But sometimes it also helps to have another person alongside us, on this earth, urging us on as we urge them on.  A few months back I started working out with weights 4 or 5 times per week (can’t you tell?!?).  I had tried to work on physical strength before as an adult, but never really got into it.  A few years back I made a New Year’s resolution to do push-ups and sit-ups 3 times a week.  I was successful for about six weeks, until life got busy, and I found excuses not to do it (plus, it wasn’t really that much fun).  So what made the difference this time around?  What has kept me on track since around June?  A good friend taught me how to start working out.  At first we started with only a few exercises, and we would meet at least once per week.  Both of our schedules have filled up since then, and now we might work out together once or twice a month, if that.  But I still keep at it because we challenge each other to work out when we can, and we hold each other accountable.  
    I would suggest having someone to help you in your spiritual life.  Don’t try to tackle it by yourself.  When you are ready to go deeper, involve a friend or two who can hold you accountable and urge you on.  If it’s reading more Scripture, have another friend read with you (physically, or at least reading the same amount each day or week).  If it’s working on a virtue or a penitential practice, check in with each other.  Notice that Jesus calls the rich young man to follow Him, which meant being in the group of disciples who worked together on being more closely conformed to Jesus.  We tend to do better, and Jesus knows this, with others when we try to grow in our relationship with Him.  
    If you’re struggling to still keep the Commandments, have someone help you with that.  If you’ve mastered the Ten, then find a friend who will not let you settle, but will work out those spiritual muscles with you each week.  Hear and accept the invitation that Jesus is offering you today to follow Him.