Sunday, May 27, 2007

Walking in the moonlight

How the seasons change. Today, we celebrate Pentecost; the birth of the Church and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Only a little while ago, we recall the joy of Easter. The church bells chimed with the rhythm of new life, announcing to the world that sin and death have been vanquished, darkness must give way to light. And yet for some, this Lenten season has passed without so much as a murmur of change. The leaves fall, the sun shines and the vicissitudes of life meander as usual as we go about our pleasures and our business.

For others, this holy season has brought us closer to the passion of Christ than we dared imagine. Far beyond our tepid abstinence on Fridays and our half-hearted prayers, it seems Lenten mortification has come calling with the violence of an unwelcome guest. Life can sometimes be a hard drink to swallow when the wine press of suffering distills the potency of faith.

I know of many who have endured pain, misunderstanding, loss, illness and death over this period – so much so that inevitable questions arise within their human hearts – Where is God? Is he real? Why me?

Indeed, what is the Christian response to suffering, especially when it afflicts the innocent and good with the bluntness of crude terror? What words escape us when Calvary shakes the ground we stand upon and swallows us in its bowels?

Instinctively, we look towards the cross of Christ. From our spiritual birth, we’ve been taught to find our answers and meaning in the crucified form of the Nazarene, who so loved us, he hung himself dry of life in order that we may live with hope - brave, certain, new abiding hope - supernatural hope. And so we pray.

And we pray.

And we pray.

And sometimes, the wait for an answer echoes in unbearable silence. For a generation used to quick solutions and immediate gratification, this can be a torturous journey that pushes our faith and hope to the limits.

Why does God take so long to come to our aid? 40 years of the Israelites wandering in the desert, 13 years of St. Monica weeping for the conversion of her son Augustine, and night after night of endless prayers offered up in desperation by countless souls in the crucible of Calvary. Sometimes, the sighs we offer up to the eternal one seem to take an eternity to be answered. In the meantime, we stay racked on a bed of pain where the sinews of our faith are stretched to the limits of human credence.

In short, the mystery of Christian suffering remains that – a mystery. And I don’t think there are any human answers for the divine will, at least none that will satisfy our vulgar thirst for justification.

It’s understandable that we want to hold God accountable for our faith in him. “We believed in you and we called on your name and you did not answer”. It’s what I call the “convenience store” spirituality. I made an agreement with you that you would be my God and I would be your customer. I rang the bell and there was no service. Not only that, I was kept waiting even though I’m obviously an important patron with an existing account - in this case, my willingness to profess my belief in you as my Lord and Savior as long as you hold up your end of the transaction in this barter of wills.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten up from my table at a restaurant and simply walked away because of the bad service, or turned my nose at a bargain because I was invisible to sales staff who were too busy picking lint off their lapels to notice my calls for help.

Nobody likes to be ignored because we expect a certain degree of attention and responsibility from people in our circle of life, whether personal, romantic or professional. And since we’ve invested our hopes and faith in this bank of trust, we expect reasonable returns or lo and behold, we’re withdrawing our faith and taking our business somewhere else.

But God is not our supplier and we are not his clients. Our Father in heaven wants nothing from us but only happiness for us. To persist in the immaturity of this “convenience store” relationship will only obstruct our faith and bury our prayers in the soil of self-conceit, and we shall never penetrate the essence of what it means to be loved and to love with all our hearts in spite of riding the roller coaster of life.

The covenant between God and man is not a business contract; it is a marriage feast of the lamb, a spousal union of life that invites us to give ourselves to another in generous service and love so as to till the soil of our own souls to receive the seed and flowering of the Holy Spirit in our relationships. But like the multitudes that followed Jesus through the Judean countryside, we sometimes mistake our lust for God’s bread with our love for him.

In a marriage, we do not marry for what our spouses can do for us but for who they are as persons in God. And if we are to be faithful in our supernatural marriage to the Lamb of God, we must open our eyes and our hearts to the greatest good that is our Lord himself, and not what he can do for us.

Still, we cannot ignore the very real suffering of losing a loved one, or the pain of debilitating disease or the empty hours of deep loneliness some of us go through. The Lord himself does not want us to deny these realities and difficulties.

But neither does he want us to lose hope or courage on the brow of Calvary, for standing beneath that cross in the storm of uncertainty, is to also stand before the power of redemption and life; to be bathed in the water and blood that gushes upon us in love and renewal so that strengthened and transformed like the Roman Centurion; St. Longinus, we may descend from that holy mountain to face the world anew with glory and strength.

As we recall the memory of the infant church gathered around the presence of her mother Mary, who prayed with and for them, I find it most interesting that Our Blessed Lord chose to give Mary to us as our own beloved Mother at the very precise point of his crucifixion; when the disciples were twisting in the fear and despair of their darkest hour, unable to see the light that was bursting forth from his pierced heart.

There were so many glorious episodes in the gospel when our Lord could’ve chosen to make this grand gift of his mother to the Church, but instead he waited for this one dramatic moment to entrust her to us and vice versa. Why?

Is it because when the night is darkest that we need the moon the most, so that we will not lose our way completely. Or maybe it’s because Our Lord knows that we need to draw strength from her maternal presence and love the same way he did, in all the dark Calvarys of our lives? Perhaps it’s when we feel most abandoned and orphaned that we need our mother’s love the most?

Surely it’s all of the above and more. I’ve included one of my favourite renderings of the Pieta scene with this entry. And to close, I’d like to also share this little anecdote from the life of St. Josemaria Escriva…where he shares an observation from his childhood:

“I remember how in my country, when harvest season came and they did not yet have these modern agricultural machines, they lifted the heavy bundles of wheat by hand and loaded them on the backs of mules or poor little donkeys. And come a certain time in the day, around noon, the wives, the daughters, the sisters would come – with scarves gracefully draped over their heads, so that their more delicate skin would not get sunburned – and bring them cool wine. That drink refreshed the tired men, encouraged them, strengthened them…That is how I see you, O Blessed Mother. When we struggle to serve God, you come to encourage us throughout this journey. Through your hands, all graces come to us.”

No comments: