At Last Bone of My Bones and Flesh of My Flesh

Created to be Perfect for the Marriage of Divine Love

A Reflection on the Readings for the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Year B

By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

Readings:

Genesis 2:18-24

Hebrews 2:9-11

Mark 10:2-16

Made Perfect through sufferings means being made perfect for a loving relationship

When the author of the Letter to the Hebrews (2:9-11) declares that Jesus was made perfect through suffering, he was not talking about Jesus being made perfect in his nature - which, of course was already perfect - nor was he talking about Jesus being made perfect in grace - in which he was likewise also already perfect. When it says that Jesus was made perfect through suffering, it means that Jesus was made perfect for identifying with and deeply empathizing with human beings in their suffering, and he was made perfect for offering that suffering to our common Father as the suffering of God. Here is a little story to illustrate this point.

A man put up a sign in front of his house that read: “Puppies for Sale.” Soon after, a young boy came in to inquire. “Please, Mister,” he said, “I’d like to buy one of your puppies.” “Well, son,” the man replied, “they’re $25.” The boy looked crushed. “I’ve only got two dollars and five cents. Could I see them anyway?” “Of course. Maybe we can work something out,” said the man. The lad’s eyes danced at the sight of those five little balls of fur. “I can offer you this one here for $2.00. She has a defect in her leg.” said the man. “Oh yes,” replied the boy excitedly, “she would be perfect for me.” “Well, you know,” warned the man, “that dog will be crippled for life.” “That’s definitely the puppy I want.” The man said again, “But she’ll always have a limp.” Smiling, the boy pulled up one pant leg, revealing a brace supporting his leg due to a congenital defect. “I don’t walk good either.” Then, looking at the puppy sympathetically, he continued, “I guess she’ll need a lot of love and help. I sure did. It’s not so easy being crippled.” “Here, take her,” said the man. “I know you’ll give her a good home. Forget the money.” In this story we see a young boy who has been made perfect to be the ideal caregiver of the crippled puppy through what he suffered, namely his personal handicap. Because he has experienced lameness, he is now in the best position to understand and help the lame puppy. In the same way, Christ, by embracing the human condition and experiencing the hardships, weaknesses and temptations of human life, became the perfect candidate to help us along the way of salvation. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The statement that Jesus was made perfect through suffering does not make sense if we apply to it the philosophical meaning of being made perfect. From a philosophical perspective “to be perfect” means to be ideal in every respect, to be altogether excellent, to be absolutely free from any flaw or defect. The Hebrew understanding of perfection, which is more likely the sense of the word that is used in this passage from the Letter to the Hebrews, has a nuance. In the Hebrew understanding of the text, “to be perfect” most likely means “to be ideally suited for a particular purpose” Here perfection can be understood as being relative to an end, rather than as something absolute. Thus, it would be better to understand the statement that Jesus was made perfect through suffering as saying that, on account of what he suffered, Jesus became ideally suited for the purpose for which he came, namely, to be “the pioneer of our salvation” (verse 10). And he became ideally suited to our salvation by becoming perfect in the deep empathic regard for those who suffer that is in someone who himself has suffered as the other has. Today the Church deliberately connects this passage with passages from the Old and New Testaments on marriage. I think that it is because this is what marriage is about: being made perfect for empathic regard - for love - for the perfect activation of the image and likeness of God in us.

Created to be suitable for the marriage of divine love

In the first reading, we hear Adam, as he gazes upon his new partner, Eve, declare, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Adam was not just declaring Eve to be of the same nature as he, but was identifying with her with the deepest empathic regard. This is how God the Father regards each of the beings that he creates in his own image and likeness. He so identifies with them that he sees their needs as his own needs, and their sufferings as his own sufferings. That what he intended to be imitated through the beings that he created in his image and likeness: that each regards the other with the deepest empathic regard, identifying with the other so that he or she sees the other’s needs as his or her own, and the other’s sufferings as his or her own. To prove to humankind that he so identified with us that he regards our needs as his own needs and our sufferings as his own, he becomes incarnate in the second person of the Trinity, the Son who is one with the Father and with whom the Father perfectly identifies with. When Son takes on human flesh, it thereby becomes for the Father “Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” not in the sense that God, who is pure Spirit, has flesh and bones, but that the bones and flesh of humanity, is connected, not only to the image and likeness of God in the human individual, but now becomes connected into the Body of the very Son of God, and now becomes perfectly identified as the Father’s own bones and flesh, connected as they are in the Body of Christ to the divine nature. The heavenly Father gazes with an infinite and eternal love at this Body of human beings and says, like Adam, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” It is thus that God became incarnate in Christ Jesus as a Bridegroom to be wedded to humanity, the collective of human beings becoming “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh” in the Body of Christ. He weds humanity with infinite and eternal faithful loving mercy, with a complete gift of self, giving his very self in sacrifice to be consumed sacramentally by us, consuming the flesh of the Son of Man so that we may become “bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh” in divine spiritual communion. The Father, who creates many children in Christ his Beloved Son, through this divine marital bond, also brings “many children to glory.” (Hebrews 2:10) And the principal human agency of this divine marital bond is the marriage bond between man and woman. Through the incarnation and self-sacrificial giving of the Son to humanity as Bridegroom, God elevated marriage to a sacramental status - a divine status. It is now a sacramental bond which makes present the eternal self-giving act of the Son of God, emptying himself, and becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:7-8) to manifest his faithful loving mercy by his total gift of self to the other.

God wants to declare to every one of us: “At last bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

God made known through Jesus that he desires the marital bond between two human beings to be the imitation of the love bond between the Father and the Son, through which he begets the Son in eternity, and begets children in creation, with that same infinite and eternal faithful loving mercy. God wants the marital relationship to be the sacramental by which children first encounter God’s faithful loving mercy. It is the bond by which human beings participate in the creative loving mercy of God, and the bond through which human beings receive the grace of birth and rebirth in the Lord. This is why Jesus insists that, even though the Lord previously allowed for a divorce “of convenience” because of the hardheartedness of men, which allowed a spouse, if he or she was not well disposed to great personal sacrifice, to avoid significant self-sacrifice in a marriage by getting out of it, this “divorce of convenience” is no longer tolerable to the Lord, because he now wants total gift of self by each partner in marriage in imitation of his own total gift of self to humankind. Marriage is now to be the primary vehicle for the bonding of humans in the one Body in which humanity becomes for God “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” God wants each one of us so bonded in the the Body of his Son that he can gaze upon each of us with the same infinite and eternal loving gaze with which he gazes upon his Son and say to each of us both individually and collectively, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Although marriage is a major sacramental bond for activating the channel of divine love in us - that is, the image and likeness of God in us - the channel of divine love in us can be activated in other states of life as well, including religious life, whether in a religious order like we are, or in parish or other forms of community life where one is able to make a full gift of self in loving service. The channel of divine love in us - that is, the divine image and likeness in us - is only fully activated in us when we make a total gift of self. Let us pray that the Lord will continue to give each of us the grace to make that total gift of self in the service of love so that the Lord may say to us with delight, “At last, bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.”

All for Jesus,

Fr. Max

Donning the True Religious Habit

 

Cutting off the limbs of self-interest

Reflection on the Readings for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B

By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

There was a man who was a member of several Catholic societies and was very active in his parish, serving as lector, Eucharistic minister and usher. One Sunday, when he was scheduled to serve as usher, he was on his way to church and was running late. Ushers needed to get there early. As he was driving, a car with a young man suddenly changed lanes cutting him off and then was going very slowly. He started blowing his horn and raising his fist. Then he changed lanes to pass the car and, as he was passing, he opened his window and yelled some obscenities at the young driver. Suddenly he sees the flashing lights of a police car behind him and the sound of the loudspeaker telling him to pull over.  He pulled over and the police officer came over to his window and asked to see his license and registration. He gives him his license and the vehicle registration and the officer returns to his vehicle to run a check. He comes back and hands the license and registration back and says, “you’re OK, you can go.” Confused, the driver asked the policeman why he had stopped him to check. The officer replied, “Well, I was driving behind you and I saw the 'Choose Life' license plate holder, the ‘I love Jesus,’ and the 'What Would Jesus Do' bumper stickers, the 'Follow Me to church' bumper sticker, and the crucifix hanging from your rearview mirror. Then I saw you blowing your horn impatiently, shaking your fist, and yelling obscenities. Naturally, I assumed you had stolen the car." Deeply embarrassed, he arrived at the church, much humbled, and started carrying out his usher duties.

The incident with the policeman that had occurred on the way to church was a real eye-opener for that man. He was “exposed,” as my students would say. What was exposed is that, even though he was very religious and an active member of his parish community, he had not yet fully donned the habit of his baptismal consecration. Christian virtue was still lacking in a certain significant way.

The story about the usher was a fictional story, but I have a true story of something that happened to me very recently. I was driving along Avenue C in Bayonne with my friend Nagui in the passenger seat. I started feeling very frustrated because of what seemed to me a very slow speed that the cars ahead of me were driving. I even turned to Nagui and complained about the slow speed of the traffic. Some distance down the road I realized that at the head of the cars was a police vehicle. Then I looked down at my odometer and noticed that the traffic was moving right at the speed limit. I was exposed!

There is a danger for religious people: to have the expectation that membership and active participation in a religious society or group guarantees that they are virtuous. As a member of a Benedictine religious community, I engage in daily exercises of prayer and work with the expectation of growing in grace and virtue. I wear a habit made up of a tunic, scapular and hood. It serves as a strong symbol of what I strive to be as a monastic consecrated religious. But none of this guarantees that I am virtuous. My wearing of the habit and all of the ritual exercises that I perform every day, alone do not serve as guarantors of my virtue. These daily exercises must be accompanied, as Jesus advises in the Gospel today, by authentic inward efforts at cutting off the limbs of vice which cause me to stumble, and cause my heart to turn away from the light of Christ and toward the darkness of sin. I must daily pluck out the eye of envy and jealousy and prejudice which color my perceptions and cause me to react in sinful ways toward others, and, as I myself, my inner vision darkened by sinful self-interest, act as a child of darkness, rather than a child of the light and of the day, as St. Paul says (1 Thessalonians 5:5). I may thus cause others to turn their hearts from the lighted path of the spirit. I must daily cut off the hand of anger which causes me to ignore the presence of Christ in my brother or sister, and causes me to “return evil for evil; rather, always seek what is good for each other and for all” (1 Thessalonians 5:15); resulting not only in myself not being at peace, but also preventing me from promoting peace among my brothers and sisters. I must daily cut off the foot of pride which causes me to walk in the way of self-advancement and self-building, at the expense of the interests and advancement of others, causing me to stumble along in the drunken stupor of illusion of control, and not only prevent my own heart from dwelling in heaven, but turn my brother’s or sister’s heart from the heavenly path. I must always be conscious of how my calling as a Christian, in general, and as a monastic, specifically, is meant to give inspiration, and help people to come to an awareness of God’s presence and of his loving mercy. As a Christian and especially as a monastic, my heart must continually dwell in heaven through contemplation even as my body and mind dwell on earth engaged in the business of the world, transforming that business into loving service that transmits heaven into the daily lives of myself and others. I must always be aware that bad behavior on my part, especially as a monastic, serves, as Jesus said, to put a stumbling block before the little ones who believe in him. It is through people like me and you that they come to a knowledge of Jesus. What impression of Jesus am I giving them? Therefore I must strive daily to don the true religious habit: the most beautiful habit, and the most authentic habit. That is, the habit of faithfulness and charity. This is the most beautiful and authentic habit that a religious person can put on. It is a habit that one does not put on from the outside, but it is put on from the inside. It radiates outward, and it radiates with the love of Jesus!

All for Jesus,

Fr. Max

Bearing the Marks of Christ

 

A Reflection on the Meaning of Suffering through the Wounds of Jesus

By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

When we think of saints like Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, whose memorial we celebrate on September 23rd, and Francis of Assisi, whose feast day we celebrate on October 4th, we think of the stigmata, which were a manifestation in the flesh of these saints of the sacrificial mercy of Jesus realized in a very high way in them. But each and every one of us is also called to bear the marks of Christ in our body and soul. The stigmata by which we, as ordinary Christians, manifest the sacrificial mercy of Christ in the flesh is our compassion for those who suffer, our joyful readiness to bear suffering ourselves, and our joyful readiness to come to the service of others in need. We are called to bear the wounds of Christ by suffering with him. Although Christ’s death on the cross was final, his redemptive suffering is ongoing. St. Paul (Romans 6:10-13) makes clear that the death of Christ was once for all, perfect in fulfilling its purpose: “For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all. . .” But we also know that Jesus’ redemptive suffering continues vicariously through us and all who suffer across the ages. When Jesus invites us take up our cross daily to follow him (Matthew 16:24-26), he invites us to share in his ongoing redemptive suffering for sin as a way of participating in his evangelical mission of drawing souls to his Father as adopted children and heirs of God (Romans 8:17): “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God . . . and fellow heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” But, we are assured that bearing the wounds of Christ, suffering with him, comes with the redemptive power of the resurrection (Philippians 3:10): “. . .that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. . .” “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

Jesus suffers vicariously through us in all of our sufferings and in the sufferings of all those who suffer in the world. Henri Nouwen articulated this mystery so profoundly when he said (Christ of the Americas): “We have come to the inner knowledge that the agony of the world is God’s agony. The agony of women, men and children during the ages reveals to us the inexhaustible depth of God’s agony that we glimpsed in the garden of Gethsemane. The deepest meaning of human history is the gradual unfolding of the suffering of Christ. As long as there is human history, the story of Christ’s suffering has not yet been fully told. Every time we hear more about the way human beings are in pain, we come to know more about the immensity of God’s love, who did not want to exclude anything human from his experience of being God. God indeed is Yahweh Rachamin, the God who carries his suffering people in his womb, with the intimacy and care of a mother. This is what Blaise Pascal alluded to when he wrote that Christ is in agony until the end of time. The more we try to enter into this mystery the more we will come to see the suffering world as a world hidden in God.” This is why St. Teresa of Calcutta invites us to see in the poor, and in all those who are suffering, Christ on the cross saying “I thirst,” and invites us to satisfy that thirst through deeds of love. Our sacrificial works of charity are not carried out in order to get us into heaven, but they are the means by which heaven gets into us who are members of that “suffering world hidden in God”. Our works of charity guarantee that our heart dwells in heaven even while our body and mind dwell on earth engaged in the business of the world.

The prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 9:11, 16, 20; 10:4) repeats the phrase: “. . .and his hand is still outstretched!” In this passage, Isaiah expressed the punishing - the wounding effect - of his outstretched arm, but he adds elsewhere with great emphasis that the ultimate effect of his outstretched arm is healing and forgiveness and mercy. In Old Testament times, the Lord stretched out his arm with a punitive effect toward the sinner in order to gain mercy for the most vulnerable and suffering - for the widow, the orphan and the stranger - while at the same time humbling the sinner so that he would become open to the redemptive mercy of the Lord. Likewise, in New Testament times, Jesus stretches out his arm to us, inviting us to take up our cross in self-sacrifice for the sake of others, especially the suffering and needy, inviting us to take up our cross daily to follow him, bearing his wounds in our body and soul, interceding with him to the Father, to gain mercy for the poor and downtrodden, while, at the same time, his same outstretched arm provides strength and healing to our own sinful soul, humbling our hearts in preparation for receiving his redemptive mercy.

After his resurrection Jesus stretched out his arm so that Thomas and the other apostles could touch his wounds now glorified. Jesus did not not say to Thomas, “Touch my side.” No. Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your hand into my side.” He wanted Thomas to do more than touch his wounds. He wanted Thomas to touch his heart, and thereby to touch the heart of God. Jesus invites us daily, also, to put our hand into the wound in his side, to touch his heart, so as to touch the very heart of God, and thereby to become channels of the excruciating love that flows from the heart of so loving a Father, through the heart of Jesus, flowing through his wounded side. The wounds of Jesus are an opening in creation to the heart of God. They are an opening to touch the heart of Jesus, and thereby to touch the heart of God. The wound in Jesus' side is an opening to a most intimate heart-touching-heart relationship between God and human beings. Whenever I put my hand into the side of Christ, reaching with the hand of charity, to touch his heart, the water and blood of grace and mercy flow through me into the world. In contemplating the wounds of Christ, I can see how, with a lance, a human being opened up the passageway between time and eternity; how, with a lance, a human being pierced the divine heart of love, piercing the heart of a man nailed to a cross, that the water of divine holiness and the blood of divine goodness and love may flow forth from the divine heart of love of the Father, through the wound in the heart of a human being, into men and women to sanctify them quicken them with true and eternal life.

It is in this way that Jesus invites us, with outstretched arms, to touch his wounds, so that we may be healed and that we may offer his healing touch to others. Like the apostles, I feel the wounding of the Lord’s outstretched arm as I take up my cross in order to, as St. Paul said, “fill up in [my own] flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the Church.” (Colossians 1:24) And it is thus that I, like St. Paul and the other apostles, bear the marks of Jesus on my body.” It is thus that I become a channel for the healing flood of grace and mercy which flows forth from his glorified wounds to flow into the world. Whenever I perform an act of mercy, a self-sacrificial deed of charity, an act of forgiveness, I touch the wounds of Christ, and I gain the healing grace that pours forth from his wounds not only for myself, but for others as well, because I am in that moment an earthbound channel of the heavenly channel of his wounds. Thus, every person who is living a truly evangelical life bears the marks of Christ in his/her body and soul, and bears the evangelical message, also forecast by Isaiah (9:1-2): “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; Upon those who lived in a land of gloom a light has shone. You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing. The suffering of the cross, of the wounds, is not for suffering’s sake, but for the channeling of mercy into the world.

Because of the power of the resurrection in the wounds of Christ which we bear through our suffering, we are able to embrace great suffering because this suffering, joined to the wounds of Christ Crucified, can now serve for us as a vehicle of contemplation: a vehicle of the contemplation of the profound compassion and faithful mercy of God the loving Father, expressed through his incarnate Word, who embraced death on the cross as an expression of excruciating love. In our own suffering, we contemplate the wounds of Christ, to see how Jesus was pierced with sorrow and deep compassion for the sins which keep souls from being open to God’s love, and we ourselves become pierced with Christ with that same sorrow for sin and deep compassion for souls.

All for Jesus,

Fr. Max

Created To Be An Ev-angel

A Reflection for the Feast of St. Michael and the Archangels

By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

In a homily by St Gregory the Great (PL 76, 1250-1251), St. Gregory says that the word “angel” is denotative of a function, much more so than of a nature. The nature of the beings that we usually refer to as angels is to be incorporeal spirits. It is their function to be the holy spirits of heaven who are personal intermediaries between the Holy Trinity and corporeal creation. As St. Benedict says (RB 7:13), our “actions everywhere are in God’s sight and are reported by angels at every hour.” They are spirits, and they can only be properly called angels to the extent that they deliver some message. As St. Gregory points out, the spirits who deliver messages of lesser importance are referred to simply as angels; while those who proclaim messages of supreme importance are called archangels. And so, it was not merely an angel, but the archangel, Gabriel, that was sent to the Virgin Mary, to convey the message of the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, by which the second person of the Holy Trinity would become incarnate. It is only fitting that the highest angels, the archangels, should come to announce the greatest messages. Although all angels have a perfect knowledge of God that comes from the direct vision and intercourse with the Holy Trinity, it is only the archangels who are given proper names to denote the service they are empowered to perform. The three names that we are most familiar with are, Michael, which means “Who is like God”; Gabriel which means “The Strength [or the Power] of God”; and Raphael, which means “God’s Healing Remedy.”

We too, like the archangels, are given names, because we are embodied spirits with a specific mission. The same root, angelos, is in the word evangelical, which means bringing the good news. Created in the image and likeness of God, each of us is made “little lower than the angels and crowned with honor and glory.” (Psalm 8:5) We do something that the archangels cannot do: we embody God’s love. We are embodied spirits. We are not arch-angels, we are ev-angels, good news bearers. As ev-angels, we are created as mission - our very being is a mission. We are created as personal messengers - ev-angels - of the Holy Trinity, to convey, in the world, God’s faithful mercy. That is the meaning of our personhood: to sound through the mask of corporeality the spiritual reality of the greatness and glory of an infinite and eternal loving creator. We are like angels especially when we become truly evangelical persons, living a life rooted in contemplation and prayer; living a holy life continuously conveying the message - the good news - of God’s faithful and merciful love, through our words and good deeds - by our very lives. Like St. Michael, by our words of praise and our humble obedience to the Word of God, we proclaim, “Micha-el!”, “Who is like unto God!” Like St. Gabriel, our deeds of loving service proclaim “Gabri-el”, “The Strength of God.” Our compassion and care for the sick and for those most vulnerable, and especially our acts of forgiveness and mercy toward our enemies, proclaim, “Rapha-el!” “God’s Healing Remedy!” We have this mission by the very fact of being human persons, but this mission is elevated to a higher plane of spiritual - angelic - mission when we become truly evangelical persons. And we become truly evangelical persons when our hearts are dwelling in heaven through contemplation, even as our minds and bodies remain on earth engaged in the business of the world. When we become truly evangelical persons - ev-angels - it is then that we are made perfect in what God has created us to be, and it is then that God’s business in the world becomes our daily business in the world, and our daily actions and interactions become angelic actions and interactions, imbued with the message of the greatness and glory, strength, and healing remedy, of the faithful mercy of an infinite and eternal loving Father, conveyed to us through his Word, Christ Jesus, with the aid of the heavenly spirits - the Archangels - which we, in turn, convey to other people. May God, through his Spirit dwelling in us, and with the assistance of the Angels, continue to perfect in us our nature and mission as messengers of his faithful loving mercy: as ev-angels.

All for Jesus,

Fr. Max

A Personal Response to the Lord's Question to me: "Who Do YOU say that I am?"

 

Who Do You Say That I Am?"

A reflection on the readings for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

Readings:

Isaiah 50:5-9
James 2:14-18
Mark 8:27-35

Four famous theologians find themselves all at the same time at the historic district of Caesarea Philippi for a theological conference. They decide to take a walk together through the village. Who should appear to them but Jesus, who asks the four famous theologians the same question he asked his disciples 2000 years earlier, “Who do you say that I am?” One of them spoke up quickly and confidently sayinging in reply: “You are the totaliter aliter, the vestigious trinitatum who speaks to us in the modality of Christo-monism.” Thinking the first’s reply rather sparse, the second theologian chimes in: “You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous viewpoint of the analogia entis, the analogy of our being and the ground of all possibilities.” Then, the third of the theologians, with great confidence, clearing his throat, says: “You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming oughtness in the midst of our fraught condition of estrangement and brokenness in the contiguity and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships.” Finally, the fourth theologian, not to be outdone by the others, gets up, and raises his voice: “You are my Oppressed One, my soul's shalom, the One who was, who is, and who shall be, who has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives of the oppressed struggling for freedom, whose blackness is both literal and symbolic.” Jesus then looks up to heaven and says, “Father, I hate to tell you; these guys don’t know me and they don’t know you.”

The first time Jesus asked his disciples the question, he asked it in the third person: “Who do people say that I am?” He got what I am sure that he was expecting, an answer based on theological reflection applied to Scripture, especially the passages which seemed to predict the return of Elijah or others of the Prophets. This is the type of reply which is comfortable and not personally demanding. It is the type of response that the Pharisees would be comfortable with, which the philosopher-theologians are comfortable with. There is a place for faith expressed through theological reflection, but it is not a living and redemptive expression.  Jesus then poses the question to his disciples in a very direct and very personal way: “Who do YOU say that I am?” Posed in this way, the question demands a very personal response from a personal experience of, and personal relationship with Jesus.  

In every moment, in every event of my life, Jesus asks me the question, “Who do you say that I am?” In every person I encounter, Jesus presents himself to me asking the question, “Who do YOU say that I am?” He directs this question to me especially when I am engaged in the most trying and challenging circumstances, with people who are most difficult and challenging to work for or work with. He directs this question to me - “Who do YOU say that I am? - most directly, most poignantly, and most personally, when I am feeling most frustrated or angry or resentful or fearful, or mistrustful. He asks me this question when he presents himself in the form of a person in need of my attention and concern. “Who do you say that I am?” He asks me this question when he presents himself in the form of a person in need of my forgiveness and mercy. “Who do you say that I am?” Hopefully, my response will be like that of Peter: “You are the Christ.” This response need not be expressed in words. In fact, my response: “You are the Christ,” must especially be expressed by my actions. My response to Jesus: “You are the Christ,” must be expressed by my loving deeds and my kind response to the other person or persons who are being the most challenging to me. And it must not be done in an artificial way. Loving acts that fulfill the needs of the person before me, whether they be emotional needs or physical needs, guarantee that my expressions of faith are living and redemptive expressions of faith. My loving service to others, especially to those who require mercy and forgiveness, guarantees that my belief, that Jesus is the Messiah, becomes a true faith expression. For, as St. James says, “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? . . . If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? . . . faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.” If I look at my brother or sister in Christ, and I refuse to show him or her mercy or offer them loving service, I rebuke the Lord just as Peter did, who esteemed the humiliation of rejection, and self-sacrifice associated with bearing persecution, as something that was inconsistent with a Messianic, apostolic mission. If I refuse, in any moment, the cross of humiliation and self-sacrifice, in that moment, the Lord says to me, just as he did to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind, not on divine things, but on human things.” When Jesus sternly ordered his disciples not to tell anyone about his messianic mission, it was not because he did not want them to give testimony to others about this messianic mission, but it was because he wanted them to declare his Messiahship more by deeds and example than by words.

Jesus comes to me in every moment, in every circumstance of my life, and he most especially comes to me as people who challenge me to be patient and merciful, asking me in a very direct and very personal way, “Who do YOU say that I am?” I must answer the question, more with deeds than with words, from the simple facts of my personal experience and relationship with Jesus. My response must flow from the simple acknowledgement of Christ present in the other person, and from the simple response of loving gratitude for that loving presence. My acts of mercy and loving service say to Jesus, “You are the Christ.” If we have a personal experience of him through a life of prayer and good works, then in every moment we can respond with a living and personal faith to his question, “Who do YOU say that I am, from the heart: “You are the Christ.”

All for Jesus,

Fr. Max

Doing The Lord's Work and Doing it HIS Way

Doing The Lord's Work and Doing it HIS Way

Reflection on Luke 10:38-42

By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

Rabbi Bloom and Father O'Reilly were arguing one day about which religion – Judaism or Catholicism – helps us more effectively to do God’s work and fulfill his will. They went on for some time and very soon, things began to get out of hand. Finally Rabbi Bloom said, "We must not quarrel in this way. It's not right. We are both doing God's work, you in your way and I in His way." Actually, there is an important message here. Doing God’s work is not automatically in perfect alignment with doing God’s will. It is common to think that if I am doing God’s work, then I am automatically doing God’s will. But this is not always the case. For God’s work and God’s will to line up perfectly, I must be doing God’s work in God’s way. If we are doing God’s work our way, we may indeed accomplish some good end in the service of other people, but we may not be doing God’s will, in the sense of doing it His way. Only when we are doing God’s work in God’s way are we fully being and living the end to which that labor is directed: life in God. In the moment depicted in the Gospel passage today, Martha was doing God’s work her way, anxious and worried about many things which she had determined important and necessary to accomplish, while at the same time overlooking what God himself has deemed important and necessary. Although the aim of her work – serving the bodily needs of those around her, especially the needs of their special guest, Jesus, seemed important to Martha, it was not what Jesus himself deemed important at that moment. Mary, on the other hand, was at that moment not physically laboring, but was preparing herself for a more perfect labor of love – a labor of being, rather than a mere labor of doing – by listening and contemplating the Word of God in and through Jesus. Work is a way of accomplishing some end, which often involves serving the needs of other people. We have as our end meeting other’s bodily needs by serving them at table, assisting them when they are sick, etc. But if this work is not infused with a contemplative spirit, it will not be service in the perfect sense. When we do His work our way, anxiousness and worry are inevitable. When we do His work His way, inner peace will accompany our work because we will have the trust and comfort that the Lord will provide. Labor which is true service is an exterior outpouring of our interior response, a most intimate response, to God’s loving presence and work within us. Christians are called to be servants in imitation of Christ, as the ones through whom he exercises his servanthood in the world. This means that it is by the grace of the Holy Spirit that is in us through faith, that the image and likeness of God is perfected in us as we become more fully imitators of God’s Word, the Son of God, who is supreme in the art of service, and the Supreme Servant who seeks to serve God’s children. He who is supreme in the art of service, serves the needs of his children through each of us, not by our own power, but by the power of his Spirit in us. As St. Paul said, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). This guarantees that when I labor to do God’s will, I am more likely to be doing it in His way rather than in my way.

All for Jesus,

Fr. Max

Master, to whom shall we go?

Reflection on the Readings for the 21st Sunday of Ordinary Time - Year B
By Fr. Maximilian Buonocore, OSB

Readings:
Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b

Ephesians 5:21-32

John 6:60-69

Once a priest [not me] was delivering a homily with much gusto and enthusiasm on the challenges of the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not kill!” he boomed as his right hand made a sweeping cut through the air. A fired-up member of the congregation in the front row exclaimed in agreement, “Amen, Father, amen.” “Thou shalt not steal!” the priest fulminated. “Amen!” said another parishioner, responding enthusiastically. “Thou shalt not bear false witness!” The whole congregation started responding, “Amen.” With the tension rising to electric pitch, the preacher then declared with a loud voice, “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Suddenly the congregation became silent, and, after a few moments a parishioner spoke up, “Now, now, Father,” he said, “you have stopped preaching. Now you’re meddling.”

We don’t like when Jesus gets too close for comfort in his demands on us. We want to be good, but we cringe when he ups the moral bar. In the reading from Ephesians, we hear St. Paul tell us about the high bar that Jesus has set for marriage. Divorce, which was always a universally accepted practice, is now, according to Jesus’ teaching, no longer morally acceptable, making the moral bar for living as a virtuous spouse much higher. In Matthew 5 (Verse 28), Jesus teaches that it is not enough just to refrain from adultery. “I tell you,” he says, “that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” again, raising the bar for sexual morality. He also declares that refraining from committing violence against a brother with whom you are angry is not morally virtuous enough. “Anyone who is angry with his brother is liable to judgment (Mathew 5:22). “Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.” (1 John 15). Just being obedient to the Law is no longer enough for moral virtue that is sanctifying. Moral virtue that leads to holiness does not come from obeying the Law which one can do by one’s own power. True moral virtue is not so much externally demanding, but internally demanding. Moral virtue that is sanctifying can only come from the power of love - a power deep within which has a supernatural origin. “It is the spirit that gives life, while the flesh is of no avail.” (John 6:63) A person who seeks true and sanctifying virtue seeks to obey this law of love which flows from the spirit and is deeply personal. Although it makes use of our natural powers, its origin is supernatural. In the Gospel reading, we hear Jesus tell us how we are empowered to meet the internally demanding, high moral bar that he has set for us. The challenges that he has set before us require no less than that we eat the flesh, and drink the blood, of the Son of Man - that we daily consume the Bread come down from heaven. The challenges associated with taking up our cross daily and following Christ demand that we follow the Holy One of God into the zone of mystery. Faith is the vehicle for navigating in the zone of mystery. This is hard for many. In today’s Gospel passage, we heard that many of Jesus’ disciples who were listening to him said, “This saying is hard; who can accept it?” [The Greek word in this gospel is skleros which means “not hard to understand but hard to accept.”] The people from old had understood the bread of life and the importance of blood and the symbolism being presented. What was hard to accept was submitting to Jesus and the height to which Jesus was raising the moral bar – the extent to which he was raising moral standards. It wasn’t enough to just obey the law in order to be holy. To be truly holy, one has to descend the ladder of humility and ascend the ladder of charity. He was demanding complete surrender. Surrender and change your life if you want to reach the highest levels of morality. “Do you also want to leave?” he asks us.

On days when the Lord is raising the bar on where he wants me to go in virtue, he asks me the question: “Do you also want to leave?” I can in that moment do as some of Jesus’ disciples did and turn away in my heart - shunning the Bread of Life - and return at that moment to my former way of life - my former way of thinking and attitudes which place me back in my comfort zone, back in the zone of the things that I can easily access and understand; back into the space of self-interest, back in the zone of my need to be right, my need to be in control, my need to cling to justifiable anger at someone else, etc., etc. Or, I can respond as Peter did, saying in my heart, “Master, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life.” Today I said to the Lord, “I didn’t kill my confrere today.” “That is not enough,” he replies. “Well, I have not sought any retributive justice or restorative justice against him.” “That is not enough,” he says to me again. “Well, Lord, I have been gracious toward him and interacting with him as if nothing is wrong.” “That is not enough,” the Lord insists. “Well, Lord, then what is it that you want me to do?” “I want you to seek total reconciliation with him,” is the Lord’s reply to me.” “But, Lord, I cannot do that.” “Then,” the Lord says, “Do you also want to leave?” I am tempted to say yes, but the words of St. Peter come to me: “Lord, to whom shall I go? You have the words of eternal life.” And, even without understanding where his challenge at that moment is taking me, I follow him into the realm of compromising self-interest; the realm of letting go of the need to be in control and the need to be right; I follow him into the realm of letting go of the need to cling even to justifiable anger. I follow him with the vehicle for navigating mystery - the vehicle of faith - and enter into the unknown space of mercy and love. I enter fearlessly into the mysterious space where the Holy One of God dwells, saying, as Peter said, “I have come to believe and am convinced that you are the Holy One of God.” Decisions made in faith involve taking a risk, and we usually take a risk only for the things that we believe are of great value. Further, we believe that the bigger the risk we have to take, the greater the value of the reward that we deserve. This is very true, and there is, at the same time, no greater risk and no greater reward than being in the company of the Holy One of God. But being in the company of the Holy One of God continually brings challenges my way: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you;” “forgive your brother seventy times seven times;” “take up your cross and follow me.” And this means daily entering the space of mystery and consuming the flesh and blood of the Son of God, daily entering into the Eucharistic space - in the mysterious zone of communion in the Body of Christ; the zone of spirit and life.

Let us, each day, examine how the Lord is raising the bar of moral virtue for us, and, as we grow burdened by the challenges that he places before us, hearing him say, “Do you also want to leave and return to your former way of life?” we will unhesitatingly respond with Peter: “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”