"That These People May Live"

Today's Gospel (Mark 10: 35-45) is preceded by Jesus' third prediction in Mark's Gospel about his impending suffering, death, and resurrection.  What is the apostles' reaction?  Confusion?  Upset?  No, they are only focused on themselves.  James and John want seats on either side of Jesus when he comes into his reign.  The others are jealous and angry at this request. 

How sad Jesus must have felt at all this.  Yet, he uses this moment to teach the apostles and us about true greatness.  It does not involve honor and power.  It does not seek a position in which people look up to you.  That is not the way of Jesus, nor is it the traditional Lakota way.

Last night I finished reading a book about the great Lakota leader Crazy Horse--"The Journey of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III.  Marshall emphasized the humility of Crazy Horse that led him to sacrifice himself for his people.  He wrote: "He understood that what is accomplished in the name of and for the people belongs to the people." 

This is the spirit behind the Sun Dance, the great Lakota ceremony in which people make offerings of their flesh or a pierced so that the people may live.  They offer themselves and their flesh for the good of the tribe. 

Jesus did this so that all people may live.  He sacrificed his flesh so that all people would be freed from sin on their earthly journey and freed from death when it ended. 

Jesus humbled himself.  He--the Son of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity--emptied himself of glory, position, and power and came among us as a weak one.  As the second reading (Hebrews 4: 14-16) says, he was a compassionate high priest, able "to sympathize with our weaknesses" because he "has been similarly tested in every way" that we are.  He knows the struggle. 

In the end, he sacrificed himself on the cross.  In the words of the Gospel, he gave "his life as a ransom for many."  He took our place, freeing us from slavery to sin and to death.

Our first reading (Isaiah 53: 10-11) comes from the fourth "Suffering Servant Song" in which the prophet predicts the Passion of God's Son.  A few verses earlier, Isaiah wrote that the Servant of God would be "pierced for our offenses."  He offered his flesh that all people may live.

Every celebration of Holy Mass makes this sacrifice present.  Jesus, the Head, renews his perfect offering and invites us, the Body, to offer ourselves with him that "these people"--those present, family and friends, national and ethnic groups, and even our enemies--may live.

On October 29 we will remember the first anniversary of the death of a good man who offered himself for others.  Fr. Bob Gilroy, S.J., was born in 1959.  After college he worked in a school for the blind.  He went back to school, earned a degree in art therapy, and then entered the Jesuits.  For ten years, at one time or another, he served the Lakota people at St. Francis Mission on the Rosebud and at the Sioux Spiritual Center where I worked with him.   He was a hospital chaplain, a spiritual director, and instructor in art therapy.  Like Jesus, he was a compassionate priest because he shared in people's weakness.   He suffered childhood diabetes, many resulting health problems, and a kidney transplant. Throughout, he kept his smile and distinctive laugh.   

In closing, let me share with you a poem that he wrote to accompany one of his paintings.  In its simplicity it reminds me of the lyrics of Lakota songs:

Christ is everything.
Stay close to him.
There is nothing else to do. 

Penance and Reparation

A group of young Jesuits has been writing a blog called "Whosoever Desires" for almost a year and I recently commented on a post about penance. Here's what I wrote:

Here are a few thoughts on mine on the topic of penance.

1. The 12 Step Program of recovery from alcoholism and addictions includes penance. It's in Steps 8 and 9: "Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others." The person in recovery recognizes that a harm was done and cannot be changed. Making amends is a way of trying to bring balance into the relationship. Even if it is not possible to make amends directly, a person in recovery can do something that, on a spiritual level, brings balance into the broken relationship.

2. The Church has always spoken of "reparation" in conjunction with penance. In my explanations of the traditional formula of the Morning Offering I like to explain "reparation" as "repairing the damage" that sin has caused.

Pope Benedict XVI, in his second encyclical "Spe Salvi," wrote about justice, reparation, and grace in Numbers 42-44. Quoting Theodor Adorno of the Frankfort School, he wrote that "true justice--would require a world 'where not only present suffering would be wiped out, but also that which is irrevocably past would be undone.'"

How is that possible? Only, as was pointed out in the "Whosoever Desires" post, on the Cross. The Holy Father continues: "God now reveals his true face in the figure of the sufferer who shares man's God-forsaken condition by taking it upon himself. This innocent sufferer has attained the certitude of hope: there is a God, and God can create justice in a way that we cannot conceive, yet we can begin to grasp it through faith. Yes, there is a resurrection of the flesh. There is justice. There is an 'undoing' of past suffering, a reparation that sets things right."

In the next paragraph, Pope Benedict elaborates on this mystery: "God is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ. Both these things--justice and grace--must be seen in their correct inner relationship. Grace does not cancel out justice. It does not make wrong into right. It is not a sponge which wipes everything away, so that whatever someone has done on earth ends up being of equal value."

As members of the Body of Christ, we continue the work of repairing the damage that sin has caused by sharing somehow in the mystery of the Cross. or, as St. Paul wrote to the Colossians: "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church..." (1: 24). In most cases the work of reparation will involve "offering up" the suffering that is an inevitable part of human life.

3. It seems to me that penance is part of all religious traditions and in that way could be called a "spiritual instinct" that all humans, as spiritual beings, have. Penance is a way that we "pray" with our bodies, whether it be through fasting from food or some other ascetical practice. This became clear to me when I worked among the Lakota people of South Dakota and witnessed the "inipi" or sweat lodge where the participants offered their discomfort and suffering as an intercessory prayer for individuals and the tribe. There was a strong sense of "communion" as participants would pray "Mitakuye Oyasin" ("All my relatives") and seek, through their personal purification, the good of their families, friends, and all creation.

Offering up Winter

Yesterday in Milwaukee we had over a half inch of rain. Last night the temperatures fell to below freezing. This morning I had to scrape ice off the windshield and windows of my car in order to drive to work. What a pain!...especially as the wind blew.

A few years ago I wrote a piece that appeared in the magazine Jesuit Journeys. The title of it was "Winter antidote--offer it up!" That article comes back to haunt me on mornings like today. It's easy to write about offering something up when you're inside, cozy and warm. It's another thing altogether when you're out in the cold trying to get ice off the car.

I pulled out a copy of the article to see what I wrote. Here's part of it:

Isn't winter, in the end, just one big pain? Yes, pain is part of it. It's an inevitable part of it. But when face with pain we have a choice. We can let it bring us down or we can lift it up.

The Lakota Sioux have a purification ritual called the "Inipi." One enters a sweat lodge to endure painful and stifling heat. The discomfort and pain are offered up as a prayer which is made more powerful by this physical suffering. One prays not only with one's mind, but with one's body.

"Offer it up!" In my Catholic grade school days, we often heard this advice. Whenever we encountered frustration, inconvenience, or pain, we were told to "offer it up." There is a deep spiritual instinct that crosses all religious traditions to offer our pain as a prayer. The Apostleship of Prayer encourages people to pray a "Morning Offering" in which we offer to God all our "prayers, works, joys, and sufferings" of the day. The first three are relatively easy to offer. Sufferings are not. I generally avoid them, and when they inevitably come my way I tend to ask God to take them away. I forget to use them as a prayer, to offer them up in union with that offering on a cross by which the world was saved.

Does that mean I now look forward to the pain of a Wisconsin winter? No. But it has lost some of its negavie dimension. It gives me an opportunity to take the pain and offer it as a prayer for others.

Having written that about four years ago, I am convicted every time I complain about the cold. And I'm challenged to practice what I preach. I'm glad I only have to do this one day at a time.