Friday of the Sixth Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/021712.cfm

Eucharistic Ministers,
faithful volunteers
at the VA hospital

Thus the Scripture was fulfilled that says,
Abraham believed God,
and it was credited to him as righteousness,
and he was called the friend of God.
See how a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
For just as a body without a spirit is dead,
so also faith without works is dead.

Saint Paul in his letters to the Romans and Galatians and the Letter of Saint James refer to Genesis 15:6:

And he believed the Lord; and the Lord reckoned it to him as righteousness.

In today’s scripture Saint James uses the verse to strengthen his argument that “faith without works is dead.” That is not unlike Saint Paul’s challenge to those Jews who had joined his congregation in Rome: they are saved not by observance of the Mosaic Law but by faith.

And yet the same apostle would say of faith and works:

…if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,^* but do not have love, I gain nothing.

The apostles James and Paul continually challenge the securities we would build for ourselves:

·         You are not saved by the law but by faith;

·         you are not saved by faith but by good works;

·         you are not saved by good works but by love.

And yet, as T.S. Eliot said in his poem East Coker, Love would be love for the wrong thing, even love is not all that reassuring. 

Our scriptural and poetic authors seem to be continually circling around the vortex of a mystery, inviting us to be swept into it, and yet lambasting our inability to discover its access. They will answer us when we demand, “How can one be saved?” but it never seems to be the same answer!

Nor is Jesus all that helpful. When the young man asks Jesus how he might be saved, the Messiah tells him, “Obey the Law.” The lad replies, “I have done this since my youth!” to which Jesus replies, “Sell everything you have, give the proceeds to the poor, and come follow me!”

Very likely my answer would be even less helpful: “Go to church!”

Perhaps it’s the continual circling around that vortex and our willingness to be drawn into its depths by which we’re saved. We practice being open and eager. We are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, without the assurance of what exactly is righteousness, even as we live by the Law, practice good works, love one another and believe God’s word. It may be something we have but cannot see and would never dare to claim. It may be found in The Cloud of Unknowing in which Moses and Elijah -- and Jesus -- disappeared.