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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Empty and Beautiful

Of late I have been struck with the immense blessings in my life. Many things I have received undeserved and even unlooked for. I certainly have not merited some of the gifts that have been given.

I was praying during the graduation mass for my school in thanksgiving to the Lord for an accomplishment that I am still slightly in disbelief over, and I cannot explain the emptiness of my being. It was joyful, and free. It was an emptiness that began in sorrow but ended in life. It was a miniature death of the self. I recognized many things in a few moments of prayer about my own littleness. I felt, very dramatically, my mortality and all of its frailty. Simultaneously, I sensed the power that is God's presence in our lives. I knew His strength in a new way. I saw in the Eucharist the true Bread that is Life for the world. I sensed how absolutely in need of the food of God I was, above and beyond all other forms of nourishment. I understood that though my stomach might hunger, my soul hungered in a way that was stronger and louder. I do not know if I have ever sensed the same level of poverty within myself that I did at that mass.

I beg us to consider poverty anew. Poverty does not need to be a material state, although I believe very firmly that if one is in a material state of poverty it is easier to reach a spiritual state of poverty. Yet, what does it mean to be "poor in spirit"? The Lord said that those who were poor in spirit were "blessed" and that "theirs is the kingdom of heaven." There is much to think on here. The Lord could easily mean both an earthly poverty and a spiritual one, and he could also easily have meant both an earthly experience of the Kingdom and the Heavenly one. For those who live a life here on this earth understanding their own meekness before the King, their indebtedness to their Father, will certainly be living a life that testifies to the Kingdom while on earth. Likewise, those who live that form of humility will most certainly be close to the Kingdom of Heaven when it is their time to depart from this life. We would not deny that this is what we receive in the Eucharist each day, and what the many readings surrounding the Eucharist during the Easter Season emphasize; we receive the Lord, the Giver of Life. We receive the Bread of Life.

St. John recounts the Bread of Life Discourse in Chapter 6, saying:
"So Jesus said to them, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.' So they said to him, 'Sir, give us this bread always.'
Jesus said to them, 'I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst'" (6:32-35). 



It seems so simple, I think many of us (especially in our contemporary culture) do not know how to receive such an invitation. Was this not the fault and crime of the pharisees of Christ's own time? They were blinded by their expectations, by what they were accustomed to. They could not bring themselves to learn a new way of life, to accept a new teaching. Yet, we have the invitation to let go of our former sight. We have the invitation to ask that we might be able to see, like the blind man who pursues Jesus until he is healed. We have the invitation to ask to be able to receive that which is being offered. Christ's own disciples said that his teaching was hard. Further into John's Gospel Christ informs them that his very flesh and blood is the life that he offers them:

"'I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died; this is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.'

The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?'

Jesus said to them, 'Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.'

Then many of his disciples who were listening said, 'This saying is hard; who can accept it?'

Since Jesus knew that his disciples were murmuring about this, he said to them, 'Does this shock you?'" (6:48-61)



Where do we begin to consider this? Christ raises an immense challenge, and yet, a beautiful invitation. "Does this shock you?" Perhaps we can assume that after God has given so much to us, our very beings over to us, we should not be surprised that He would feed us with His own flesh. Yet, our natural sensibilities seem to be repulsed at the concept. Not only is the idea strange to us, but the fact that Jesus explains this gift while being alive, and neither His flesh nor His blood being poured out yet, make it hard to understand. Yet, consider his words! "The one who feeds on me will have life because of me." 

This is the key to living in the Kingdom while still on earth! This is the secret to poverty of spirit, to being little and knowing our indebtedness. This is where we take up our cross of indentured servitude and simultaneously receive the adopted sonship given to us in Christ! It is feeding on Him, truly taking His life into ours, that enables us to see with true sight, and receive and understand all that the Lord gives to us while on earth. 



This is why the joy of blessings in life must come hand in hand with the sorrows and pains. One cannot truly understand what a gift life itself is if he does not know the truth of death. Once we realize what we have been ransomed from, what true mercy it is that we have been preserved, we can truly rejoice. God's gift to his children is that simple. We have but to acknowledge our lowliness and be thankful for it all the same. We have but to offer thanks, to celebrate that we do not have to merit our salvation, this true life, for we could never do so. No, we have been purchased at a cost, the price of the Life of the Son of God. In Him we are set free, free to live in Him and love according to His love. This ought to be our strength and drive for every minor death to self or death to sin that we suffer throughout each day. To join in the kenosis, the self-emptying, the pouring out that Christ made on our behalf; this is to know what eternal life is like while still on earth! 

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