What?! Me Worry?

In the summer of 1969, I and a Jesuit priest and five of my high school classmates embarked on a great adventure.  Every summer Fr. John Eagan, S.J. led a group of six Marquette High Juniors-about-to-become-Seniors on a two-week camping trip around the shores of Lake Superior. 

After a restless night of anticipation, we headed North. Fr. Eagan drove the station wagon. Two students sat next to him in the front and three in the back seat.  One got to lay down in the back of the wagon behind all the equipment.  We came to think of him as the lucky one and we took turns in that spot.  For as soon as we hit the highway, Fr. Eagan pulled out a rosary and invited us to pray.  We rolled our eyes, thinking this wasn’t  looking like it was going to be the fun trip we thought it would be. 

Two weeks later, when it was my turn to have the choice spot in the back where you didn’t have to pray the rosary, I declined and offered to sit up front.  Somehow I had come to enjoy praying the rosary every day as we drove.

I returned from the trip feeling like a new person.  The rosary, the beauty of God’s creation, the sense of community, Mass along the shores of Lake Superior at sunset—all of these worked together to get me past a difficult year.

I’d always done well in school and much of my self-worth was tied to my grades.  But in Junior Year I took Trigonometry and Chemistry and my grades went down.  With my grades went my self-image which also took a beating as I argued with my parents over curfew and the use of the car.  And why is it that just before Homecoming a big zit appears on an adolescent boy’s forehead turning him into a cyclops? 

That summer camping trip helped me turn a corner.  I began Senior Year feeling a lot better about myself.  A seed had been planted.  I thought that perhaps I would enjoy doing for others what Fr. John Eagan had done for me.  Maybe I should become a Jesuit priest like him.

But at seventeen, with my whole life ahead of me, I thought: “There’s plenty of time for that.  I want to see the world first.”  So I went to Dominican College in Racine, Wisconsin. I know: “See the world from Racine!?”  OK.  I wanted to experience more of life before going into the Jesuits. 

Before going off to college, I and a good friend from the previous summer’s camping trip decided, for old time’s sake, to do it again.  We took off, knowing that we would cross paths with Fr. Eagan and a group of six guys from the class behind us.  We camped near them and around the campfire one night we made fun of one of those Juniors.  Bill was an athletic kid, a cross-country runner, but during the day when we came to streams and had to cross by walking on logs, Bill got down and crawled across. 

The trip ended and I went off to college.  In September Fr. Eagan called and asked me to pray for Bill. He’d been diagnosed with a brain tumor.  In November I went to his funeral.  Seeing him laid out in the coffin turned the heat up on my vocation discernment. I decided not to delay doing what deep in my heart I felt called to do.  I visited the Jesuit novitiate, applied, was accepted, and entered the Jesuits after one year of college at the age of nineteen. 

The thought of our mortality—that we do not have forever—gives perspective to life.  Every Ash Wednesday we are reminded that we are dust, that our life on earth is not forever.  We begin Lent asking whether we are on the right track. 

A lot changed for me during those camping trips and what followed.  But one thing hasn’t changed—worry.  On our way back from that first camping trip we gave out awards for the best swimmer, diver, cook, etc.  The award I received was “Worry Wart of 1969.”  Throughout the trip I planned for the worst and asked questions: “What if it’s raining, how can we set up camp and cook? What if it’s dark?  What if we run out of repellent or lotion? What if, what if…?

When I told Fr. Eagan that I was going to apply to the Jesuits he challenged me about the worry.  He said that if I became a Jesuit my path, my future would be a great unknown.  I would have to let go of worry and be flexible.  I couldn’t prepare for every eventuality. 

That has certainly been true.  I entered the Society of Jesus to teach in an urban, Jesuit, college-prep school like the one I’d gone to.  I’ve never done that.  And if I’d known then about what I would face in my forty-five years as a Jesuit, I would have been too afraid to apply.  But I’m glad I did.  I would not have grown or become the person I am today without all those things I would have worried about.

Worry saps our energy and leads to stress that takes a toll on our physical, emotional, and spiritual health.  Worry borrows tomorrow’s possible problems and crams them into today.  As Jesus said, “Sufficient for a day is its own evil” (Matt. 6: 34).

Worry fosters a negative attitude.  We see the world through dark glasses as we prepare for the worst.  Such preparation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Worry was the “original temptation.”  Prior to the Original Sin, our ancestral parents worried about whether they could really trust God.  Maybe God wasn’t telling them the whole story.  Maybe God wouldn’t be there for them.  Wouldn’t it be better to get control?  There is a saying: “If you worry, why pray? And if you pray, why worry?”  When we worry we try to be in control, to be gods.  So what’s the point of praying if you are trying to be God?  When we pray we put our trust in God and not in ourselves, so there’s no point in worrying and trying to be in control of everything.

Since worry is a temptation, it comes from the devil who wants to get us anxious.  The devil disturbs our peace so that we take our focus off God and put it on ourselves.  When we worry we listen to the devil and not to God.

You might ask: “So Father, why do you still worry?” 

I think worry is inevitable, just as temptation in general is.  Temptations challenge us to exercise.  Virtues are “spiritual muscles” that require nourishment (prayer and the sacraments) and exercise (fighting temptation).  When worry comes my way I know I have a choice.  I can obsess or I can exercise by practicing its opposite—trust or faith.  This is where I find certain slogans from Twelve Step Recover programs helpful: “Let go and let God;” “One day at a time;” “This too shall pass.”  I also use the prayer that Jesus told St. Faustina to put on the image of Divine Mercy.  I take a deep breath and pray “Jesus,” holding this “name above every name” (Phil. 2: 9) in my heart and in my lungs as long as I can.  Then I breathe out my worries with “I trust in you.” 

Ultimately trust involves believing in the words of Isaiah 49: 15: “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.”  God loves each one of us with a deep maternal love.

St. Teresa of Kolkata once said:  “People say that God will never give you more than you can handle.”  Then she added: “I just wish God didn’t trust me so much.” 

Yes, God trusts us.  God allows temptations so that we can grow.  God wants us to grow in the trust that will bring freedom and peace.  Though loving parents are tempted protect their children from all pain and suffering, the world is not free of those.  Painful challenges are part of life.  Some decisions lead to suffering from which children learn important lessons about consequences.  God, loving us like a parent, does not protect us from challenges and consequences.  God trusts us more than we trust ourselves.  Through painful challenges we grow stronger.  Through suffering we learn empathy.

Easier said (or in this case written) than done.  I pray that I remember the words I’ve written the next time I start worrying….

The Role of Temptation

Every First Sunday of Lent we get a gospel passage about the temptations of Jesus.  Right after his baptism in the Jordan--when, though he didn't need purification himself, he identified himself with sinful humanity--the "Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan" (Mark 1: 12-13).  This happened right before Jesus began his public ministry of teaching and healing.  Does it surprise you that Jesus was tempted?  It shouldn't.  Temptations occur not simply because we're sinners.  They happen to those who are good, as Jesus was perfectly good.  We have an enemy who wants to knock us off the right path of doing God's will, just as he tried with Jesus.

Why does God allow temptations?  There must be something in them that is good for us. What is that?

First, humility.  God does not prevent temptation because it serves the purpose of keeping us humble.  St. Paul comes to mind. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul writes about "a thorn in the flesh," "an angel of Satan" that afflicted him.  We are not sure exactly what this was, but it could have been a particular temptation, a moral struggle.  That makes sense given how Paul also wrote about his struggle with sin in Romans 7.  At any rate, he didn't like it at all and thought that he would be a much better apostle and person if he were rid of this "thorn."  He prayed for God to take it away.  The answer he received is a common answer to prayer--"No."  The Lord told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness."  It is as though God told Paul that without this "thorn" he would think he was perfect. He would become puffed up and proud, self-sufficient.  This struggle brought Paul to his knees, leading him to pray and depend on God, not himself.

A second reason is that by battling temptations we exercise and grow in virtues.  A struggle with impatience is an opportunity to exercise patience which can then grow.  Virtues don't take away temptations.  They are spiritual muscles that need to be used and exercised.  Temptations give us the opportunity to do just that.  For every temptation there is an opposite virtue which God is giving us an opportunity to develop.

Thirdly, through temptation we grow in compassion, just as Jesus did.  In Hebrews 4  we hear that "we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin."  In the desert of temptation Jesus grew in the compassion that would later motivate him as he reached out to sinners.  Our temptations can similarly help us to be more compassionate to others in their struggle. "There but for the grace of God go I."

Lastly, temptations can draw us close to Jesus. If we give in to temptation and sin, we move away from Jesus who won't abandon us but will seek us because he is the Good Shepherd who cares about his lost sheep.  But if we struggle and battle temptation, despairing of our own strength and ability and turning to the Lord in our need, shouting, "Lord, save me! I am drowning!" (see Matthew 14: 22-33), he will reach out and grab us and hold us close to himself.  Sharing a struggle brings people closer to one another. Sharing our struggle with Jesus can bring us closer to the one who has also struggled against temptation and won.

Temptation is part of life, part of following Christ.  He shared our life, with all its struggles and temptations, suffering and even death itself.  He's "been there, done that."  While we may feel far from him when we are being tempted, the reality is that we are sharing in something that he himself went through.  He is close to us in temptation and he understands.

Worry and the Sacred Heart

Last Sunday, the 8^th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the last Sunday before Lent this year, we heard challenging words from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6: 24-34).  He spoke against worry.  “I tell you, do not worry about your life…. Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span? … Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.” 

I must confess: I am a great worrier. My mother was too. She tended to think and to plan for the worst so that she would be ready for it. The problem is that this tends to give one a very negative attitude and causes a lot of needless anxiety.

In the summer of 1969 I went on a camping trip organized by Fr. John Eagan, a Jesuit priest at my high school. At the end of it, as we drove back to Milwaukee from the shores of Lake Superior, I and my five fellow juniors about to become seniors and Fr. Eagan, gave out awards to one another—the best diver, best swimmer, best cook. The award I received from my fellow campers was “Worry Wart of 1969.” Everywhere we went I was filled with questions as I prepared for disasters. “What if the rain doesn’t stop and we have to set up our tents in it and the wood is wet and we can’t start a fire? What if we can’t find a place to park? What if the people we are meeting don’t show up? What if the cut on my foot gets infected? What if, what if, what if…?”

During the next year I told Fr. Eagan that I was thinking about becoming a Jesuit. The summer trip had such a positive effect on me that I felt called to do for others what this fun and vibrant and prayerful Jesuit priest had done for me. My words were met with a caution.  Fr. Eagan told me, “Jim, if you’re going to be a Jesuit today, your future won’t be very clearly marked out for you. There will be a lot of challenges and you are going to have to learn to stop worrying so much.”

Some 42 years later I have to admit that he was right. If I knew then all the challenges and difficulties I would have to face, I probably would not have entered the Jesuits. If I had known that I would enter a classroom on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at the age of 26 (prophetically, I thought, on the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist!) and that I would have to be in charge of a one-room dormitory of 60 high school boys in bunk beds, I would have balked at the idea of a Jesuit vocation. If I had known the challenges I would face as the province vocation director and then formation director, I would have chosen a different path. 

But in those 42 years I’ve learned some things .

First, I’ve learned that adversity, difficulties, and challenges don’t come all at once. I’m learning more and more not to borrow tomorrow’s troubles today. As Jesus put it in the last words from Sunday’s gospel: “Sufficient for a day is its own evil.” It’s unfair to cram all of tomorrow’s potential problems into today. This one day can’t contain them all.  Live one day at a time!

I’ve also learned that worrying doesn’t really prepare me for potential problems and instead can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The anxiety and stress that worry causes only make handling the difficulties of life even more difficult.

And I’ve learned that the only way to grow is through facing and overcoming challenges. Through overcoming adversity and dealing with problems, I grow as a person. I grow spiritually and I grow in the virtues.

Worry is a temptation against trust and faith and hope.  When the temptation comes my way, I try to see it as an opportunity to grow in those virtues. Worry is a call to put into practice the slogan that many people involved in 12 Step recovery programs use: “Let go and let God.”

Faith and trust and hope are directed toward an object, or rather, a Person. The faith with which we are challenged to confront worry is in God and the greatest sign of God’s love is the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

A few weeks ago when I visited grade school classrooms in Burlington, Iowa on Valentine’s Day, all the students knew that the heart symbolizes love. And when I asked them why the Heart of Jesus was there on the outside of his body in the pictures I showed them, they answered that this was a way to show that the love of Jesus is always there for us.

Some of them had heard the expression “My heart goes out to you.” I explained that this is a way of showing compassion.  The Sacred Heart is a way that Jesus says to us: My Heart always goes out to you. My Heart is always there for you.”  And because the Heart of Jesus is on the outside of his body, it is in a very vulnerable place. His Heart can be and is wounded and hurt. Thorns surround it.

The love of God doesn’t remove or prevent adversity or pain. Our faith in the love of God revealed in the Sacred Heart of Jesus won’t take away all our struggles. It’s natural to think: if God loved me, this pain or difficulty would be taken away.  But a greater sign of love is not to remove the difficulty; it’s to share in it.  The depths of God’s love are shown in the fact that God entered into our life with its worries and struggles, its sufferings and even into death itself.  This willingness to share in suffering and death is a greater sign of love.

I know that I will continue to worry.  That’s not only because it’s part of my personality. It’s because I need to continually exercise my faith and trust in order to keep these virtues healthy and growing.  The Heart of Jesus won’t remove the things that cause worry, but his Heart will give me strength to face them. I know that I am not alone and that Jesus shares my struggles.

Does that mean that Jesus even shared in my battle with worry? The challenges in last Sunday’s gospel would seem to indicate that he didn’t. Yet, if we look more closely at the Scriptures we see that Jesus worried.  His words challenging us not to worry and to have faith came from his own experience.

According to Hebrews 4: 15, we have a compassionate high priest who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses because he “has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.”  Jesus was tempted by worry. We have to imagine him worrying about his apostles, whether they would ever “get it” and understand the kind of messiah that he was—one who would save the people by suffering and dying for them; whether they would run away in his hour of need and not return?

But perhaps the most striking instance of Jesus’ battling the temptation to become anxious occurred in the Garden of Gethsemane. His human nature rebelled against the suffering and death that he anticipated. He was so anxious that he literally sweat blood (Luke 22: 44).  Yet in the end, the Heart of Jesus, filled with love and trust for the Father, surrendered to his will. He took hold of the cup that he prayed would pass him by and drank it, with its suffering and death, to the bitter dregs. 

The compassionate Heart of Jesus knows anxiety and worry in a way that I have not known. I can always draw near to that Heart which is not hidden but always there. And like John at the Last Supper, I can find the strength to embrace the crosses that will come my way.  I may still worry about them, but I can find faith and trust and the strength to face them in the Heart of Jesus.

 

Temptation

The first reading at Mass today has one of my favorite passages from the Letter to the Hebrews. It's from the last verse of chapter 2 and goes like this: "Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested."  Another translation uses the word "tempted" instead of "tested."  It's consoling to know that Jesus was tempted by the devil.  Though we know that from the Gospel stories of His temptations in the desert, we tend to think that Jesus could not have been tempted the way we are.  Yet, a couple chapters later in Hebrews we read: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin" (4:15).  In other words, Jesus was tempted "in every way" that we are but did not sin.

The temptations we experience are certainly related to "concupiscence" (a tendency toward sin), one of the effects of Original Sin that remains after Baptism.  But the fact that Jesus, the Sinless One and Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, was tempted shows us that temptation involves more than our inherent tendency toward sin.  What else is involved?

First, we, like Jesus, have enemies who tempt us to get off track, to follow our self-will rather than the will of God.  Today's Gospel (Mark 1:29-39) shows Jesus doing battle with these enemies, driving demons away from people.  In our daily lives we face temptations that come from demons and we must engage them in battle, praying and fasting them away from us.

Secondly, temptations enabled Jesus to be in a position to "sympathize with our weaknesses."  Because He suffered temptation, He was able to be compassionate, to "suffer with" those who are being similarly tempted.

Thirdly, this battle with temptations makes us stronger.  Another verse from Hebrews says that Jesus "learned obedience from what he suffered" (5:8).  In other words, He grew in the virtue of obedience by exercising it during those times when He was tempted to do His own will rather than the will of the Father. The climax of that painful testing was in a Garden called Gethsemane where He prayed for the cup of His Passion to pass Him by but in the end chose to fulfill the will of the Father perfectly by drinking that bitter cup on the cross. 

More and more I've come to see temptations in this light--as opportunities to grow in particular virtues.  Virtues are like spiritual muscles and just as physical muscles need to be exercised lest they atrophy so too the virtues.  These spiritual muscles will only grow through the exercise that goes with fighting temptations. 

It's a good idea at the end of the day to review the temptations of the day.  What were the opposite virtues in which God was calling you to grow by allowing you to experience those temptations?  Were you impatient?  Then clearly you were given the opportunity to exercise and grow in the virtue of patience.  Were you anxious or worried?  God was giving you the opportunity to exercise faith and trust.  Were you despairing? You were called to practice hope. Were you tempted by lustful thoughts, desiring sexual pleasure for yourself and seeing others as objects for that pleasure rather than as persons made in the image of God? You were being called to grow in a pure heart and the virtue of chastity.  Did resentful thoughts come you way? God wanted you to grow in forgiveness so that you might have a merciful heart like His. 

Looking back on the temptations of the day and seeing them as opportunities to grow in virtues is a good thing to include in the daily examination of conscience or examen or evening review.  It's also a way to exercise your eyes.  Eyes?  Yes, the eyes of faith.  During this Year of Faith it would be a good idea to see all reality--the situation of the wider world and the events of your own day--in light of faith.  That means seeing the enemy who is active in our world and in our lives and seeing the opportunities that are being given to grow in a virtuous life.

Witness for Life

My good friend Peggy Hamill, the director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, asked me to preside and preach at a special Mass today. After Mass we marched to a local abortion mill where we prayed. In my homily I said the following:

Today's first reading from the Letter to the Hebrews (4: 12-16) says that the "Word of God is living and effective." The Word of God is the Scriptures. It is also the proclamation of the Gospel at every Mass where Jesus is present speaking to us. But it is more. The beginning of John's Gospel says that "the Word became flesh."

Jesus is this Word that is "living and effective." He is, as Hebrews says, "able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart." He knows what is in our hearts and the hearts of all people. And, reading our thoughts, He is, as the first reading says, a compassionate high priest who is able "to sympathize with our weaknesses." The Word became flesh and lived our human life. Sharing our human nature, He "has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin." Jesus knows the temptations and struggles of our hearts.

After His baptism, Jesus went into the desert where He was tempted. We read about this every year on the First Sunday of Lent. Jesus was tempted as we are tempted.

In the midst of forty days of fasting, Jesus was hungry and was tempted to turn stones into bread to satisfy His hunger. This was against the plan of God, the natural law that God has built into creation. In our world today we see a similar temptation to reject God's plan for creation and to go against the natural law, to define marriage and life in our own way rather than to accept God's definition.

Next, Jesus was tempted to throw Himself off the temple, to do something flashy to get people's attention so that He could manipulate them for His own purposes. In this way He could amass an army of followers who would be pawns for His purposes. But humans are not pawns, not objects to be manipulated and used. Our world is tempted to use the media in ways to manipulate people. We're tempted to view others--babies in the womb, the terminally ill, "the other side," our enemies--as objects to be disposed.

Thirdly, Satan tempted Jesus to fall down and worship him, to make an idol of a creature, to honor the rebel and his rebellion. And so are we tempted to make creatures and our own desires greater than God, to follow the original rebel and to make his plans for the destruction of humanity our own.

Sharing our human nature and tempted in every way that we are, Jesus understands us. He understands our battle. This is why we see Him in today's Gospel (Mark 2: 13-17) going out to sinners, to those who are self-destructing through sin. He came to them and spoke the truth with love. He came to call and to heal sinners. He continues to speak to us, to our world. He continues to reach out to sinners and to heal us and our broken world.

He comes into our world today through us. St. Augustine once said that Mary first received into her Immaculate Heart what she would later conceive in her womb--the Word. She gave flesh to the Word in this way. When we receive Jesus in Word and in Sacrament, as we do at this Mass, we too give flesh to the Word. Pope John Paul II, who will be beatified next May 1--Divine Mercy Sunday and the first day of Mary's month (there are no coincidences when it comes to God)--wrote in his encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia":

"At the Annunciation Mary conceived the Son of God in the physical reality of his body and blood, thus anticipating within herself what to some degree happens sacramentally in every believer who receives, under the signs of bread and wine, the Lord's body and blood. ... As a result, there is a profound analogy between the Fiat which Mary said in reply to the angel, and the Amen which every believer says when receiving the body of the Lord." (#55)

Before we receive our Lord's Body and Blood in Holy Communion, we say "Amen." Yes, I believe. Yes, I believe I am sent now to bring You into the world.

In a little while we will go forth to bring Jesus into the world. We will bring Him present in ourselves to a place of death. Like Jesus we will pray for conversion. Like Him we will sacrifice. Of course our sacrifice--the time we spend in the cold and wind--are as nothing compared to what He suffered on the cross for the salvation of sinners. But our prayers and sacrifices, joined to His perfect sacrifice, have great power, and so we go forth with confidence.

In closing, let us be strengthened in our hope and confidence by the words of Pope John Paul II from the conclusion of his encyclical "The Gospel of Life."

"The angel's Annunciation to Mary is framed by these reassuring words: "Do not be afraid, Mary" and "with God nothing will be impossible" (Lk 1:30, 37). The whole of the Virgin Mother's life is in fact pervaded by the certainty that God is near to her and that he accompanies her with his providential care. The same is true of the Church…. Mary is a living word of comfort for the Church in her struggle against death. Showing us the Son, the Church assures us that in him the forces of death have already been defeated."