Fifth Sunday of Easter

Lectionary: 53

Children, let us love not in word or speech
but in deed and truth.
Now this is how we shall know that we belong to the truth
and reassure our hearts before him
in whatever our hearts condemn,
for God is greater than our hearts and knows everything.
Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us....

In the First Letter of Saint John, which was apparently written to clear up some misunderstandings about his Gospel, the Evangelist speaks of the truth which reassures our hearts. Apparently, Catholic guilt ain't just a thin layer of gold on a chalice; it's been with us since the beginning. It's an anxiety that will remain until....

When we come to the Lord we invariably bring a lot of baggage with us, including many misunderstandings of what it means to be good, holy, or prayerful. Failing to immediately attain the unreasonable standards which the world expects of the ideal man or woman, we become very anxious. As the wise man said, "Being in love is happiest ten minutes of your life." When the ten minutes are up, some people strangle on the vine. Or, to use another metaphor, they have no roots and wither in the heat. 

I find it helpful to remember there is no such thing as an ideal human being. God never made one. Ideal is a standard by which things are measured. Most things are good enough; some are better. None are ideal, for an ideal is an idea which is supposed to last forever. It is permanent, stable, solid, and unalterable. Which resembles no one and no thing I've ever met.  

But, like every living creature, humans are made of dirt. "From dust ye were made and to dust ye shall return!" I was not promising material to start with. 

Add to that the thousand natural shocks which flesh is heir to, and you come up with a package of damaged goods. Here I am. When the bishop called my name in 1975, I stood up and said, "Here!" I had no idea how damaged I already was, but let me tell you the Priest guilt was thicker than gilt. It might be polished to a shine but it's only a sheen, with as many tears and rips as a teenager's stressed jeans. 

But I had many things going for me. First was the support of friars, friends, family, and Church who uniformly forgave my most obvious sins and ignored the lesser ones. Secondly, the discipline of daily prayer which I vowed as a Franciscan and as a priest. I think especially of the psalms. 

The psalms, which are the foundation of our Divine Office, ("Liturgy of the Hours") are corporate prayers, in the sense that anyone who reads them prays in the name of the whole Church. But they're also very personal; nearly all of them reflect the lament of the lonely individual. This lonely person prays to be delivered from their enemies, who are many.  

They attacked me on my day of distress,
but the LORD was my support.
He set me free in the open;
he rescued me because he loves me. Psalm 18: 19-20

Traditionally, Catholics understand the psalms as the personal prayer of Jesus; and we read his cry of distress as our own. Today's Responsorial Psalm 22 recounts in vivid detail all the trouble the Lord endured to save us from our enemies, and then concludes with:

I will fulfill my vows before those who fear the LORD.
The lowly shall eat their fill;
they who seek the LORD shall praise him:
"May your hearts live forever!"
I will praise you, Lord, in the assembly of your people.

I think also of Psalm 139

LORD, you have probed me, you know me:
you know when I sit and stand;
you understand my thoughts from afar.
You sift through my travels and my rest,
with all my ways you are familiar. 

But our anxieties don't go away. Like the furies who punished Orestes (Sartre called them Flies, in his play of the same name), they persist through life until death do us part. Through the practice of prayer, the Sacrament of Penance, much counseling (medically assisted), and many years, I began to hear the Voice of God over the drone of the flies, gnats, wasps, and hornets of my troubled conscience. 

And, as Saint John says, we reassure one another as a Church, "not in word or speech but in deed and truth." 

When "I get IT" I finally realize IT's not me; IT is God who says, 

...my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways,
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:8

And as Ezekiel thundered

Not for your sake do I act, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you desecrated among the nations to which you came. But I will show the holiness of my great name, desecrated among the nations, in whose midst you desecrated it. Then the nations shall know that I am the LORD when through you I show my holiness before their very eyes. Ez 36:21

As the lady said, "Build a bridge and get over yourself!"  Building that bridge to the Lord takes a long time. As Rabbi Heschel said, 

"Not the individual man nor a single generation by its own power can erect the bridge that leads to God. Faith is the achievement of ages, an effort accumulated over centuries."

Upon entering the Church -- or stepping into a basilica, cathedral, church, or chapel -- we abandon the self. A culture of death and individualism howls in protest. (Let the nations rage!) We enter the silence and learn to ignore to our thoughts. (For you are not ready for thought.") 

What does it matter what I think? Am I anxious? What does it matter that I am anxious? I belong to the Lord; my fate is in his hands and he is worthy of my trust. And if he is not? I guess it doesn't matter. I will trust in the Lord, like Joshua upon entering the Promised Land: 

As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord

Amen