TAKE AND RECEIVE

"Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding and my entire will - all that I have and call my own. You have given it to me. To You, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it what You will. Give me only Your love and Your grace. That is enough for me."

prayer from Retreat Manual from Manresa on the Mississippi, Convent Louisiana.

the sparrow sings

still, the sparrow sings
as the brook trickles by
destiny unknown brings
no grand hope for success

the sparrow sings still
as the brook trickles by
origin unknown thrills
without pretense

it is not a place
it is not a time
the sparrow sings
the brook trickles by

I Have Come To Set The Earth On Fire

I think this gospel reading could be classified as another hard saying of Jesus from Nazareth. Every time we try to put Jesus into a box he seems to break out and challenge us. The great temptation is always to explain away his behavior or his hard sayings, but to do so is an attempt to make Jesus behave up to, or should I say down to our expectations. It is easy to want to classify Jesus as the peace-maker, but this gospel account contradicts that image. If we were to read this passage from the Quaran it might easily reinforce our perceptions of the warrior prophet Mohammed. But when we find these sayings from Jesus we want to minimize them or explain them away. To engage Jesus we must avoid this impulse and be challenged by him.

Often we have heard some say that people are divided by those who profess their faith in Jesus and those who do not. This is not unique to Christianity for we find the same tempation to separate people by faith proclamations in other faiths too. However, this is not the challenge Jesus has laid before us today. Jesus is challenging us with a proclamation of God’s kingdom. The separation will come as a result of how we are found behaving towards each other. The separation is a result of those who beat their servants, and those who do not. The separation occurs as a result of our lifestyle choices. Do we live in a state where we are gorging ourselves in exuberant lifestyles, or are we found prudent and humble?

In today's gospel we find Jesus saying that he has come to set the earth on fire. He obviously does not mean this in a literal sense, but in reference to his impending crucifixion. The fire Jesus has come to set is the proclamation of God’s kingdom which is a life based upon God’s will. It is a selfless lifestyle that ultimately will result in the surrender of Jesus’ life upon the cross. He is to shed his blood and die, then it will be time for each of us to make our own decision regarding Jesus and this decision will separate us regardless of our previous relationships with each other. We must each make our own decision regarding Jesus and God's kingdom and what is right and wrong. No-one else can do that for us. Jesus will ask us, " Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?" We cannot rely on our parents or the church to make these decision for us. Our faith must not be the faith of our fathers, but it must be our own faith lived and expressed in total freedom. Each of us must make our own decisions in our own heart, in our own time, and in our own way. The decision we are making is not a faith proclamation, but a decision on how we will respond to each other and treat other. It a decision whether we should surrender our will or hold onto it and even impose it upon others or not.

This passage cannot be understood separate from the context in which it is written. We recall that in the passage prior to this we find Jesus teaching a parable of preparedness. It is the parable of the master's return from a wedding. This passage from Luke's gospel is a demonstration of how Jesus reacts to those who continue to treat others unjustly, who beat their servants not expecting the return of the master. Jesus is telling us to be prepared today for the master's return and to live today as if this were the day of the master's return.

Often we read this gospel passage today and think that what Jesus is demanding of us is a simple faith statement, but that is such a shallow reading of this passage and of the person of Jesus. Instead what Jesus is interested in is seeing the servant who knows the will of God and is found doing it. What is this baptism of fire Jesus awaits but the living out of the will of God with all of its implications and consequences? The division that comes is a real division. It is not a division between people who profess one faith or another, but a division that exists between those who know the will of God and are found living it, and those who do not and are preoccupied with living the illusionary life of profit, power, and pleasure. Our world is still found ablaze with the fire Jesus has set by his act of submission. The challenge of the cross is not an event of the past, but forever in the present as every moment we must make our choice anew about the way we treat each other. If we look for a simple life of peace that is based on some false sense of conflict avoidance, then we will be disappointed by the challenge of Jesus. The peace Jesus offers is the peace of submission. It is the peace of the crucifixion.

A reflection based upon a reading of LK 12: 49-53

The Source Is Within You

Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish, every sweet word will fade,
But do not be disheartened,
The source they come from is eternal, growing,
Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Why do you weep?
The source is within you
And this whole world is springing up from it.

~ Rumi ~

Hafiz: I Have Come Into The World To See This

I have come into this world to experience this:

men so true to love they would rather

die before speaking

an unkind

word,

men so true their lives are His covenant – the promise of hope.

I have come into this world to see this:

the sword drop from men’s hands

even at the height

of their arc of

rage

because we have finally realized

there is just one flesh

we can wound.

Some sayings of Meister Eckhart

"Whoever possesses God in their being, has him in a divine manner, and he shines out to them in all things; for them all things taste of God and in all things it is God's image that they see.""People should not worry as much about what they do but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good, then their deeds are radiant. If you are righteous, then what you do will also be righteous. We should not think that holiness is based on what we do but rather on what we are, for it is not our works which sanctify us but we who sanctify our works.""It is a fair trade and an equal exchange: to the extent that you depart from things, thus far, no more and no less, God enters into you with all that is his, as far as you have stripped yourself of yourself in all things. It is here that you should begin, whatever the cost, for it is here that you will find true peace, and nowhere else." Talks of Instruction

The Pagan Philosper's Quest for Holiness

Virtue was understood to be that which leads one to God, through the interior transformation of one's being. "Without virtue," Plotinus said, "God is only a word." The practice of asceticism and the cultivation of virtue, as Plotinus understood it, was meant to lead to an extremely simple attitude. The goal of the philosophical life, then, was not to remove oneself from society, but to be so transformed inwardly that one was able to live within society with a freedom which came from a simple regard for "the One."
Plotinus claims that "each of us is an intellectual cosmos," that the journey of the soul is "a voyage of self-discovery ... [I]f we wish to know the Real, we have only to look within ourselves." Such self-exploration teaches one to distinguish between a lower self-consciousness - the ego's awareness of its own activity - and a higher consciousness - the secret inner person who is "continually in the intellectual realm." Because the hidden center of this inner self coincides with the center of all things, the self may hope at times to achieve total unification, that is, "become God" or, as Plotinus says, to be God.

DOUGLAS BURTON-CHRISTIE:
The Pagan Philosopher's Quest for Holiness: Plotinus and his Circle