Transformation through Trial

 Second Sunday of Lent
    In many a great story of literature, we find a hero who has to undergo a great trial, or many great trials.  After going through the trial(s), the hero is changed, for the better; transformed, we might even say.  This is true of ancient literature, like “The Odyssey,” where Odysseus, on his way home from war, has to conquer many trials on various islands as his ship is tossed about the seas.  This is true of classical literature like “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, where Ebenezer Scrooge has to grapple with his past, his present, and even a possible future in order to be changed from a miser to philanthropist.  This is true in the great Catholic trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien where Frodo is put through many trials trying to destroy the Ring of Power in the fires of Mount Doom.  This is even true in J. K. Rowling’s novels about Harry Potter, who discovers who he is and how to stop the evil wizard Voldemort through many tribulations.  
  

 That is true also for Abraham in today’s first reading.  After being promised a son to inherit everything; after his wife, Sarah, getting impatient with God’s plan and telling Abraham to conceive a child with her slave, Hagar; after finally having that son through Sarah, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, his only son (at least of the promise), the son whom he loves.  Abraham’s willingness to abandon himself to God’s plan, however mysterious, is his great trial, for which God greatly rewards Abraham.
    As for the greatest story ever told, the story of Jesus, He doesn’t have to do anything to be great; He is great because He is God.  And yet, Jesus, too, in humility, undergoes a great trial in His Passion and Death, in order to be transformed, to be raised from the dead and receive a glorified body.  And in today’s Gospel, we hear about a foretaste of that glorified body as Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John.  It is a rest before the great struggle begins, and the apostles will need that reminder as they go through an unexpected journey of their own with their Master.
    What about our story?  I dare say that everyone over the past year has had trials.  And many people had trials before COVID.  And we will all have trials after we’ve gotten a handle on this pandemic.  How do we view those struggles in the light of faith?  Do we view those struggles in the light of faith, or are we fatalists, just letting life happen to us?  
    God does not call us to be fatalists, as if suffering is beyond the control of God and so we have no one to turn to during our tribulations.  God calls us to be sons and daughters in His Son, who gives us everything that we need, including allowing us to undergo trials to help us to grow.  
    There is, I would also dare say, a part of us that cringes from the trials and tests.  We would rather have the Resurrection without the crucifixion.  We would rather have abs of steel without going to the gym and eating well.  We would rather have infused knowledge than going to school for so many years.  But that’s not the way the world works.  In God’s mysterious plan, somehow the struggle is good for us, and builds us in ways that cheap grace never could.  There is no such thing as cheap grace; it is never earned (because grace is a gift), but it’s also not encountered passively; it always requires some death to self, which is a struggle.  
    And the attitude to have through it all is the attitude of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jesus: God will provide.  We can imagine how much the thought of sacrificing his son tore up Abraham.  We can imagine how confused and perhaps even scared Isaac was.  And in a few weeks we’ll hear the reaction of Jesus to His known, impending suffering and Death as He asks His loving Father for another way, if it is possible.  But, and these words are key, Jesus says, “Not my will, but yours be done.”  
    The trials and tribulations of life, the sufferings we encounter, especially if they are not of our own making, are the ways that we pass through death to life.  Lent is a long time of truly entering in, as we are called to do year round, to the Paschal Mystery–to the Passion and Death of Jesus–so that we are share in the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.  And if we go through whatever struggles we have with God, they do strengthen us, they transform us, they even transfigure us to be more like Jesus in glory.  
    We have a choice: do we want to get to that glory that Jesus showed His apostles on Mt. Tabor?  If so, there’s only one way to get there: through the cross; through suffering and death to our own wills and to our own sinfulness.  St. Rose of Lima put it this way: “Apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”  The ladder may be difficult to climb, but the reward at the top is joy beyond imagining!  In the story of your life, follow the path of so many literary heroes: go through trials so that you can be transformed!

The Puzzle of Salvation

Third Sunday of Easter

When I was in middle school, my best friend at the time, Jeff, had a puzzle for me to figure out.  It was a kind of a guessing game.  He said I had to guess the secret of the green glass door, by asking me if certain things were behind the green glass door.  He started off by giving me a few examples: Jeff was behind the green glass door; Anthony was not.  Neither cats nor dogs were behind the green glass door, but both trees and grass were.  I asked him all sorts of questions about whether certain persons, animals, and things were behind the green glass door, and it took me weeks to figure out the secret of the green glass door.  I won’t tell it to you, but don’t zone out of my homily to think about the green glass door!

St. Peter preaching

Peter in our first reading and Jesus in the Gospel are trying to give people the key to the puzzle of salvation.  Peter in the first reading is addressing the people who are listening to him after he and John had cured a crippled man at the temple.  They are all amazed and puzzled how these two fishermen could do such an amazing thing.  Peter points out that the man is healed by Jesus, who is the fulfillment of “‘what [God] had announced beforehand through the mouth of all the prophets.’”  Peter was explaining that Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s plan throughout the entire Old Testament, and that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, even though Jesus suffered and was put to death.  This idea that the Messiah was a suffering servant was in the Scriptures, especially the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah, but the Messiah was expected to bring suffering to those who oppressed the Jews, not suffer himself!  So Peter has to tell the Jews that following Jesus is the culmination of what it means to be a Jew, and that the healing of the crippled man bears witness to the power of the Risen Lord.

Peter knew this all too well at this point, because he had no idea throughout the life of Jesus before His crucifixion.  Right after Peter makes his affirmation that Jesus is the Christ (the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah), and right after Jesus tells Peter that the Church will be built upon Peter, the Rock, Jesus announces His passion for the first time, and Peter says, “God forbid!”  Peter doesn’t understand.  And as Jesus prepares His disciples before the crucifixion, they have no idea.  Even after Jesus has been raised, he has to explain to the apostles that this was part of the plan of God.  Jesus says, “‘Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, would be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.’”  It takes a lot to help the apostles understand that the crucifixion was part of the plan just as the Resurrection was.  

We can often be in the same place as the apostles: confused.  How many times when suffering comes do we immediately go to: why me?  Or: what did I do wrong?  Or: why is God punishing me?  Our vision of what it means to follow Jesus is similar to the apostles and to the early Jews: if we follow God, everything is going to be hunky-dory (that’s a profound theological term, of course).  Sometimes we even hear it from religious leaders (hopefully not Catholic): if you follow Jesus, your life will be easy; if you give 10% of your income to the church, then you will never suffer from hard financial times; if you’re suffering then you must be doing something wrong.  That is, to quote Bishop Mengeling, puke!  

We often need to be reminded that suffering is part of individuals and groups that work against God, just as individuals worked to put Jesus to death.  Jesus Himself warned us that if they treat the Master that way, how else do we think they will treat the servants?  Suffering–and not just the natural suffering of bad weather and calamities–exists because the world is fallen and people can say no to God in radical ways that hurt us.  Suffering is not what God wants for us, but it is often part of His plan for us, not as a punishment or because God enjoys seeing us suffer, but because the cross and all the suffering in our life is the way to the Resurrection.  St. Rose of Lima said it this way: 

Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation.  Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace.  Let them know that the gifts of grace increase as the struggles increase.  Let men take care not to stray and be deceived.  This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.”

What beautiful and profound words from one of the first saints from the Americas!

Suffering is not good.  It is not good that Jesus died on the cross for us.  It would have been better if we would have just accepted Him.  But God knew from all eternity that we would reject Him, and so the cross became the means for our salvation, and the way that the new life of the Resurrection was made possible.  Easter doesn’t mean that Good Friday was just a bad dream.  But Easter makes Good Friday bearable because we know that suffering and death are not the end, but that Christ has won for us new life where once there was only death.  Sometimes we need to be reminded of the puzzle of salvation.  But in the times of suffering, let us cling to the faith and hope of the Resurrection, as the fulfillment of God’s plan for His suffering people.  

The Old Rugged Cross

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Sometimes, in writing a homily, an idea just pops into your head by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and He makes a theme known.  As I read over the readings for today on this past Monday, in preparation for writing the homily, there were so many things that I could preach on: from the first reading I saw the theme of the wisdom of God as opposed to the wisdom of the world; from the second reading I saw the theme of the fraternity of Christianity which excludes no one, not even, from St. Paul’s times, slaves who were considered property; from the Gospel I saw them theme of the cost of discipleship and whether one is strong enough to follow Jesus.  So I was wondering in which direction the Holy Spirit wanted me to go.

Then, on Wednesday, as I was driving in my car, I was listening to my iTunes, and I just felt drawn to listen to songs from an album called “How Great Thou Art: Gospel Favorites Live from the Grand Ole Opry.”  And I was driving a song came on which focused my attention for this week.  And that song was “The Old Rugged Cross.”  To me it became clear that the Holy Spirit wanted me to preach about the cross.

We don’t often think of the cross as beautiful.  It was the worst punishment that the Romans had devised to torture prisoners and foreigners.  It was so harsh that it was only applied to those who were not citizens of Rome.  And yet, Jesus says today, “‘Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.’”  Whoever does not carry his own ignominious symbol of defeat, cannot be a follower of Jesus.  That’s not the sort of thing you do to gain a large following.  No one wants to daydream about hanging, naked as the day you were born, in front of soldiers who are jeering at you, while your arms and legs are attached to the cross by nails.  No one wants to aim for being suspended on a rough piece of wood, the weight of your own body causing your lungs to slowly fill with fluid until you can no longer even breath.  And yet, as Christians, that is what we are called to do.

In the song, “The Old Rugged Cross,” the second half of the refrain goes, “I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it someday for a crown.”  It so easy to try to forget the cross part, and go straight for the crown.  Who doesn’t want to share in glory?!?  Who doesn’t want the reward?!?  And yet, the only way to do that is through the old, rugged cross.  St. Rose of Lima, the first canonized saint of the Americas, whose memorial we celebrated on 23 August adeptly related an experience of the Lord, who said to her, “‘Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation.  Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace…This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.’”  If we wish to go to heaven, then we must not only know the cross, but embrace and cling to it.  It may seem harsh, but it was the only way that our Master showed us, who only gained the resurrection after his crucifixion.

It’s also very easy to give the cross lip service.  We’ve become so used to it that we think we can utter beautiful platitudes about carrying our cross.  But when the cross comes into our lives, do we cling to it, embrace it?  Some crosses are big.  I think of the families in our parish who have miscarried, or who have lost a child shortly after birth.  What a cross.  Those families have certainly experienced the dying of Jesus in their lives, and, as much as they have united it to Jesus, will also experience the resurrection of Jesus.  Some crosses are small.  I think of those who talk about co-workers who get on their nerves; family members who always seem to be in trouble or looking for help; drivers who cut you off; the plans that fell through; the professor with whom you don’t see eye to eye; and the list goes on.  Those are also crosses, and more often than not I don’t think we embrace them.  We tend not to thank God for annoying co-workers, bad drivers, ruined plans.  And yet, that is the cross the Lord is presenting to us to carry.  That is what we should embrace.  St. Thérèse of Lisieux is a perfect example of this.  There were a few sisters in her convent who annoyed her to no end (I’m sure Sr. Dorothy and Sr. Liz have never experienced this): one with the sounds she made during prayer; another with her attitude.  What did she do?  She willed to love them and smile to them.  There was food that was prepared that she could not stand, but she smiled every time it was placed in front of her, because she saw in it the cross that the Lord had given her.  And, she smiled so much at that cross, that while she was dying with Tuberculosis, the sisters made some especially for her, thinking that it was her favorite!

To embrace the cross seems foolish.  St. Paul himself says, “but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom.”  Isn’t that what our first reading is all about: the wisdom of God? God gave us His counsel, His wisdom, in Jesus, who teaches us to take up our cross and follow Him, so that we who share in Jesus’ suffering and death might also share in His resurrection.  May our words and our very lives be the second half of that refrain from “The Old Rugged Cross”: “I will cling to the old rugged cross, and exchange it someday for a crown.”