Thanksgiving

There are three short verses in Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians that are good not only for Thanksgiving Day but for all days.  They are verses 16 to 18 of Chapter 5 and go like this:

“Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.” 

In other words, God wants us to always be grateful and to rejoice.  Easier said than done! What about when we are feeling down and things are not going well in our lives and in the lives of our loved ones? Can we give thanks then? Isn’t that naïve or dishonest?

Gratitude, like forgiveness and like love, is not so much a feeling but an act of the will. Yes, it’s easier to be grateful when we are feeling good, but St. Paul says we should give thanks in all circumstances.

This takes faith—faith that, in St. Paul’s words, “all things work for good for those who love God” (Romans 8: 28).  We can be grateful even in the midst of difficulties by making an act of faith that God is using those difficulties to work some good in the world. After all, God used one of the most horrible things that could ever happen—the crucifixion of Jesus—to bring about the greatest good—our salvation.

The natural human tendency is directed toward negativity. We tend to see the glasses in our lives as half-empty rather than half-full and this gives us dark rather than rose-colored glasses with which we view the world.  One could say that it is the will of God for us, as St. Paul wrote, to be grateful because such an attitude of thanksgiving, no matter how we are feeling, is good for us—for our spiritual, emotional, and physical health.

We don’t develop an “attitude of gratitude” overnight nor is it a matter of “once acquired, always there.”  A grateful heart needs to be exercised.  One way that we can develop a grateful heart is to make thanksgiving a part of our end-of-the-day prayer. 

In the middle of the “Inner Life” call-in spiritual direction radio show yesterday, Ann from Wisconsin sent in an email about how helpful an evening examination that includes thanksgiving has been for her. She started doing this after reading Jesuit Fr. Chris Collins’ book “Three Moments of the Day.” 

She wrote: “I read Fr. Chris Collins' book "3 Momentsof the Day" a few months ago and it's changed my life. During the Examen at the end of the day, I start my prayer with all the things I'm grateful for, that happened during the day. And then I go through the list of things I beg God for, but it's been put into perspective now, because I've just told God what I'm grateful for. And I think I've started to realize what's important... For example: Rather than beg God to improve my high school son's grades and make him work harder, I start by thanking God for my son's health and the fact that he's enjoying swim team. Then the grades don't take on as much importance.”

You can listen to the entire show on the “Inner Life”archives.

Oh, and thank you for reading this and passing it on!

The Divine Struggle to be Human

St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 2: 5-11 contains an early Church hymn about the attitude of Jesus. Paul wanted the people to whom he wrote to have this attitude. It is to be ours as well.  This attitude—vision, way of proceeding, value—is not the attitude of the world. It is not our human inclination.  Our tendency is to want independence, power, and control, in short, to be gods. 

This was the original temptation according to the third chapter of Genesis. Our ancestral parents wondered whether God could really be trusted, whether it wouldn’t be better to be independent and in control, to have the power to determine for themselves good and bad, right and wrong. They chose, in the words of the song made popular by Frank Sinatra, to do it “my way” and not God’s way.

Jesus, on the contrary, shows us God’s way, a way that is very different.  It is the way of surrender, of emptying, of humility, and obedience—all of which looks crazy in the eyes of the world. Jesus emptied himself, became a vulnerable human capable of suffering and dying.

Humility is truth.  Humility means accepting the truth that I am not God, that I am “humus”—of the earth, dust, as we are reminded every Ash Wednesday.  Therefore, in order to be happy and at peace, I must accept the truth rather than deny it or rebel against it. I must accept my nature as a vulnerable creature made of dust who is not ultimately in control.  I will only be happy and fulfilled in so far as I accept the facts and allow God to be God of my life.  Peace and joy will not be found in doing things “my way” but only in doing things “God’s way.”  That’s obedience, an unpopular concept and word today. But it’s the way of Jesus.

What worked for Jesus will work for us. This means embracing my humanity and living in accord with nature, my human nature. Then, like Jesus, I will be raised to a glory beyond what our ancestral parents grasped at.

Theologians and Doctors of the early Church taught that God became human so that humanity could become divine. This truth is quietly repeated at every Mass when a few drops of water are poured into the chalice of wine at the Offertory: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

Some years ago I heard of an author who was writing a book with a very provocative title. I don’t know if he ever finished or if it was ever published.  The title was “The Divine Struggle to be Human.”  I’ve always thought of this title in light of the emptying described in Philippians 2 and of our own struggle. We tend to turn the words of the title around and to see life as “The Human Struggle to be Divine.”  We, like our ancestral parents, grasp at power, control, independence, and equality with God. Jesus shows us that the true struggle is to embrace our humanity as he himself did. In doing so, we will be fulfilled. We will come to the union with God and the communion with all God’s children for which we were created. 

And it begins right here on earth, at the Eucharist where we come with empty hands and receive the gift of divinity—the very Body and Blood of the one who humbled himself to become human and who continues to humble himself, giving himself to us under the humble appearance of bread and wine.  We need not grasp. We need only to open our hands and hearts, empty them of everything, and receive. 

Humble, Faith-filled Prayer

Today I celebrated Mass at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Newman Center. Here is my homily for this Sunday when we hear the parable about two different kinds of prayer.

We have one more month left in the Year of Faith and today's readings are about faith and prayer.

In the gospel (Luke 18: 9-14) Jesus tells a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray.

Remember: a parable was a story that is intended to shock the listener into deeper reflection. This particular story of Jesus would certainly have shocked his listeners who would have thought that the Pharisee's prayer had been accepted while the tax collector's prayer had been rejected. After all, Pharisees scrupulously observed the Law of God and prayed and fasted and tithed, while tax collectors collaborated with the unjust and hated Roman occupation government and took some of the money they collected.  They were dishonest and known as "public sinners."

Yet Jesus turns it all around. The tax collector leaves the temple "justified" while the Pharisee doesn't. The key to the difference is humility and faith.

The Pharisee has no humility and his faith is in himself. He is so proud of himself that, according to Jesus, his prayer is addressed "to himself." He congratulates himself on his virtuous life. He compares himself to the tax collector whom he  puts him down. In speaking his prayer to himself, he has made himself a god.

The tax collector, on the other hand, has humility and has faith not in himself but in God to whom he addresses his prayer. He knows his need and he turns to God. 

In the second reading (2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18) St. Paul writes to his co-worker Timothy as he approaches his death.  He declares: "I have kept the faith." It is not faith in himself or his own abilities but in God.  We see that in a very clear way in two other letters of Paul.

In Romans 7 Paul writes about his interior conflict: "What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. ... So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. ... The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want."  Remember: this is Paul writing after his profound conversion when he went from a proud Pharisee to an apostle of Jesus Christ. Then Paul, declaring his helplessness, gives praise to God his savior: "Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

In 2 Corinthians 12 we see once again the humility and faith of St. Paul. Having just written about someone who had been given great revelations, Paul makes it clear that he is talking about himself: "because of the abundance of the revelations ... that I might not become too proud, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, an angel of Satan, to beat me, to keep me from becoming too proud." We don't know what this thorn was. Some speculate it was a particular physical ailment that slowed Paul down in his missionary work and others think it was a particular moral struggle or temptation. At any rate, Paul didn't like it and thought that he would be a much better person and apostle without it. So he prays: "Three times I begged the Lord about this, that it might leave me...."  The answer he received was "No." The Lord told Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."

"Power is made perfect in weakness!"  Tell that to the front line of the Green Bay Packers! 

But God's ways are not our ways. The Lord is telling Paul that without this weakness, this struggle, he would become too proud and would rely upon himself. He would revert back to the ways of a Pharisee and would end up having faith in himself, praying to himself, and despising everyone else who didn't measure up to his own level of perfection. Paul's struggle brings him to his knees in humble prayer to God.

Our first reading (Sirach 35: 12-14, 16-18) says that "the prayer of the lowly pierces the cloud" and "reaches the heavens."

Sometimes people wonder what is the point of praying, of making petitions to God. Isn't God all-knowing and all-powerful? So what's the point of bringing our needs and desires to God who knows them before we articulate them and who can answer them if he wishes?

Two things actually limit God's power and both are related to the fact that God is Love.

First, God loves us and therefore invites us to collaborate with him. If we don't choose to do so, then we limit God's influence in the world. For example, in the gospels there are stories of how Jesus was unable to perform miracles in certain places because of the lack of faith. Faith-filled prayer opens a way for God's power and grace to enter the world.

But, this loving power and grace can never take away human freedom. That brings us to the second limit to God's power--human freedom. God loves his human children too much to take away their freedom and to force them to love him in return or to do his will. Our prayers for those who have left the practice of the faith or who are wandering in a self-destructive life style cannot force the person for whom we are praying to turn to God and change. They do not take away the person's freedom.

What about praying for good things that both we and the person for whom we are praying desire? Like good health and healing. Sometimes it seems God does not answer those prayers. It seems so but isn't so. God answers every prayer but sometimes the answer that is given is the one St. Paul received when he asked God to take away his weakness. Sometimes it's the answer Jesus received in a garden called Gethsemane when he prayed that the cup of his suffering and death would be removed.

God sees the bigger picture and God's ways are not our human ways. God saved the world through weakness which revealed a power greater than mere human power. Helpless, nailed to a cross, the Son of God revealed the power of divine love which took away the sins of the world and destroyed death.

The celebration of the Eucharist declares our faith in that power. We remember how God saved the world: not through brutal force and violent power, but through a weakness greater than human strength. We celebrate and make present the power of love revealed on a cross. Such a celebration calls forth from us humility and faith. This is our greatest humble and faith-filled prayer.