Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 439

Blessed are you when people hate you,

and when they exclude and insult you,

and denounce your name as evil

on account of the Son of Man.

Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!

Behold, your reward will be great in heaven.

For their ancestors treated the prophets

in the same way.

Periodically, in my conversations with Veterans in the Substance Abuse program, I feel the need to remind them, "You are not entitled to a life without suffering, pain, frustration, disappointment, difficulty and insurmountable challenges." Grateful citizens have accorded Veterans certain privileges, but a life without grief is not among them.

Christians, as disciples of the Crucified, have even less entitlement. Or, to put it another way, we are entitled to "suffering, pain, frustration, disappointment, difficulty and insurmountable challenges."

Jesus admonishes us to "Rejoice and leap for joy on that day!"

This is one of those teachings that is laced with irony and yet entirely credible. It's like the jokes we used to tell about marriage, when the Sacrament was accorded deep respect:

"I never considered divorce. Not for one moment. Murder, yes, but never divorce!"

Christian practice rejoices and leaps for joy when we're called to make a sacrifice. We go the extra mile; we give our coat as well; we lend without expecting repayment. Grace -- the English equivalent of the Latin "free" -- allows us to move freely without the extra burdens of entitlement. We don't need, want or expect a life of privilege.

Pope Francis has asked the entire church to consider the sin of "clericalism." I can examine my conscience only as a cleric; I'll leave it to lay folks to discuss the issue among themselves:

Often, when I attend a dinner, served cafeteria-style, several people insists that "Father goes first." I appreciate the honor but I prefer to go last. Going first, for one thing, leaves me to select a chair at an empty table, only to discover that no one dares to sit with "Father!" They are more comfortable among known family and friends. Going last, I can politely make myself welcome in an available place. Secondly, my father and mother insisted, "Ladies first!" and "Children eat first." The father of the family, habitually making sacrificed for his loved ones, goes last. If he covets a privilege, it's the privilege to serve others.

This willingness and readiness to make sacrifice must characterize the Christian's life. Our first consideration is not, "What's in it for me." 

We can be assured that the Lord cares for his servants, and will not overtax us. Saint Francis, reflecting on that willingness, wrote in his "Praise of the Virtues," of the mother of all virtues:

Obedience subjects us to everyone on earth,

and to all the beasts as well and to the wild animals,

so that they can do what they like with us,

so far as God allows them.

I appreciate that codicil, "...so far as God allows them." 

Francis, choosing to live in wretched poverty, had an intimate relationship with fleas, ticks, wasps, chiggers and other vermin. Shortly before he died, suffering in every part of his body, he refused a comfortable room in Saint Clare's convent and slept in a makeshift shelter of tree limbs and straw. The sisters were horrified to discover he'd been tormented throughout the night by mice. He supposed the Lord had allowed them that freedom. It was one more sacrifice he could make for "the Love of God." In fact he had preferred a martyr's death in Egypt but had been refused that privilege.

Through his saints, teaching and example the Lord shows us the way of freedom and its power to save not only ourselves but many around us. 

God's freedom may be comforting but it is never comfortable. It is reassuring but never reassured. As his great prayer teaches us:

Lord make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy

O divine master grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console
to be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life.