Heaven: Taking the Lowest Place

Fresco of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy 

by Domenico di Michelino (1417–1491)

(22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on 31 August & 1 September at Holy Apostles Church in Cranston, R.I. See Sirach 3:17-29 and Luke 14: 1-14)

Midway on our life's journey, I found myself

In dark woods, the right road lost.

These are the opening lines to one of the greatest works of Italian literature ever composed, Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy.  In a certain sense The Divine Comedy is an autobiographical poem.  Written after his exile from Florence where he had been immersed in cultural and political life, it begins in media res with Dante's “mid-life crisis” and the sense of spiritual darkness that would have confronted him. 

Nonetheless, The Divine Comedy could also be a biographical poem describing any one of us.  We have all, at one time or another, experienced what it is like to be spiritually "in the dark."  Through not truly loving God as we ought or not loving those around us; in not keeping the commandments or fulfilling the responsibilities of our state in life; in those times in our lives when perhaps we have personally fallen from grace; we know what Dante Alighieri means when he speaks of being “In dark woods, the right road lost.”

For Dante this moment of darkness is suddenly pierced by a vision of light as he looks off into the distance and sees the mountain of God shining in the sun.  It is a glimpse of heaven, divine light, which reignites the hope deep within his heart and reorients his journey to nothing less than the dwelling place of God.

In our second reading for this weekend the author of the Letter to the Hebrews describes that same mountain for us.  He writes:

You have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of the just made perfect, and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant…

—Hebrews 12: 22-24

Our hearts, too, are aflame with hope and anticipation as that heavenly vision is set before us.  This is our destination, the end for which we have been created!  Set your heart on that place, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews seems to communicate to us.

But back to our story… Dante, upon approaching that mountain, begins to make his ascent only to be confronted by three ferocious beasts that block his passage: the leopard, the lion and the she-wolf.    These represent three of the great enemies of the spiritual life:

The leopard—sleek and attractive, beautiful to behold but potentially deadly—represents sensuality.  She is a formidable foe for Dante. 

Next he encounters the lion, head held high, roaring at Dante as he approaches.  He represents pride, arrogance and self-importance.  As a very gifted artist and a politically powerful man in his own right, this particular vice would no doubt have been a challenge for the Florentine poet. 

Finally Dante is confronted by the she-wolf, which is a symbol for avarice or greed, that ravenous and insatiable hunger for more and more possessions, the accumulation of riches and material goods that can never truly satisfy the soul.  

Unable to withstand these powerful enemies Dante is forced back down the mountain in discouragement as he realizes he does not possess the strength to ascend to the dwelling place of God.  His hope has been shattered.  But it is precisely here, in his discouragement and disappointment, that he will meet Virgil, the great poet from the ancient world, who will show him still another way:

“A different path from this one would be best

For you to find your way from this feral place.”

And so the poet Virgil leads Dante not upward immediately to the mountaintop but instead downward, all the way down into the depths of the Inferno. To reach the top of God’s mountain Dante will first have to humble himself and enter the lowest place of all.  It is here in the abyss of Hell itself that Dante will come face to face with the brutal reality of sin and its consequences.  It is a sight that will make him sick to his stomach for he will come to understand that this is the place which he has deserved; here are some of the same sins that have taken him off the path of God so many times.  But that is not to be Dante’s fate (nor ours, please God).

Dante is drawn out of that infernal abode and into the Purgatorio, the place of great purgation where souls who have likewise been marred by sin are nonetheless being purified and made ready for eternal bliss.  These did not hold and cling to sin as their final aspiration but instead desired God and longed for Him. 

Having been purified of all selfishness and attachments Dante will finally enter into the Paradiso, our heavenly homeland, where he will now share forever in the beatific vision.  He has made it to the top of that great mountain, but to get there he first needed to walk the path of humility.  To reach the heights of heaven he needed to begin by taking the lowest place of all.

In our Gospel for this weekend Jesus Christ invites us, as well, to walk that path of humility and to take the lowest place.  He says:

When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor…Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place.

—Luke 14:8-10

When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet…Now whenever Christ uses the phrase “wedding banquet,” He is speaking about heaven and eternal life.  In the Book of Revelation we hear of the great "wedding banquet" or "marriage supper" of the Lamb.  Jesus Christ is that Lamb of God who gives His own body and blood as food for His bride, the Church.  He will feed us with Himself and we will be united to Him forever.   This is the wedding banquet that He is referring to in the Gospel of St. Luke this weekend.  This parable about taking the lowest place and not seeking positions of honor is about so much more than table manors.  This is not some general lesson on the virtue of humility.  Jesus Christ is taking about nothing less than our eternal salvation.

Are we responding to that invitation with a humble and contrite heart (see Psalm 51:17, Daniel 15:16)?  Are we walking the path of humility and able to acknowledge that we would not have a seat at the table at all if not for God’s mercy and forgiveness in our lives?  Perhaps a closer examination of our own lives based upon Dante’s three great enemies could serve as our guide in this coming week.

Sensuality.  How are we responding to this challenge, particularly in an age where the sensual pleasures of life are held in such high esteem?  For the last week and a half we have heard so very much about Miley Cyrus.  It seems that every TV and radio talk show and entertainment outlet has something to say about her provocative performance on the Video Music Awards.  Yet sadly the day will come very soon when the world around us will forget all about Miley Cyrus.  Sic transit gloria mundi. 

But one thing is certain, the world has shown no sign whatsoever of forgetting its focus on sensuality.  The images on television and in the movies are increasing daily, not to mention what is taking place on the Internet.  Media can be a tremendous gift and a medium through which the Gospel message and so many good things can be transmitted.   Nonetheless the dramatic increase of pornography on the Internet, year in and year out, has destroyed the spiritual lives of countless individuals and ruined so many families.  How are we responding to this crisis in our time?  Do we even acknowledge that it is a crisis?  Are we praying for those who have become addicted to these images and are we seeking purity in our own personal lives each day?

Pride.  How often do we find ourselves face to face with this ferocious beast?  Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, and perhaps one of the most difficult to distinguish in a culture that places such a high degree of emphasis on the self.  How many times have we demanded “first place” in our friendships, our relationships and in the workplace?  Jesus Christ in the Gospel this weekend tells us NOT to do that!  He says that we should “go and take the lowest place.”  The great sage Ben Sirach, in our First Reading for this weekend says, “Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God” (Sirach 3:18).  Are we walking in that path of humility and seeking the favor of God?

Greed.  How are we responding to that ravenous and insatiable beast that would have eventually been the downfall of our Florentine friend Dante?    Do we find ourselves consumed by consumerism or possessed by our own possessions?  There is nothing wrong with having material possessions and wealth, but if we find ourselves constantly hungry for more then we risk losing sight of the path that God has chosen for us, the way that ends not here, but leads instead through this world to eternal life with Him. 

Like Dante we are called to take account of the struggles we face and the failures we encounter on our way home to God.  Are we able this week to do that with humility and an openness to the mercy and grace necessary to draw ever closer to the living God?  If so, then perhaps we will hear the voice of Christ in the Gospel speaking to us: My friend, move up to a higher position (Luke 14:10).  My friend, my Beloved, move closer to me even now… and in eternal life.

What is Grace?

Flannery O'Connor: 1925-1964

(20th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on 17 & 18 August at St. Eugene in Chepachet, R.I. See Jeremiah 38:1-10 and Luke 12: 49-53)

What is grace?  What do we think of when we hear that word?  People will sometimes say things like, “By the grace of God I got through that difficulty,” or “Time with family is my saving grace,” or “It was nice of him to grace us with his presence.” 

St. Paul will say to the Ephesians, “By grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).  If grace is that essential for our very salvation and is something that we encounter on a regular basis, then how vital we understand it and know how to assimilate it in our lives.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains grace as “favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call and to become children of God, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life” (CCC, #1996).  Grace is an awesome and remarkable reality. 

There are several senses in which the Catechism speaks about grace.  Firstly, there is the grace that is a “participation in the life of God” (CCC #1997).  Think about that for a moment.  It is not merely the case that the grace we receive in Baptism places us in a special relationship with God (it certainly does that).  Nor is it only the case that, by the grace we receive at Baptism, we have access to this remarkable life of faith (although we most assuredly do).  In the grace we receive at Baptism we participate in the very LIFE of God! 

The life and love that created the entire world we live in…from nothing…we participate in that life.  The life that redeemed the entire world through self-emptying love; we share in that very life.  The life that has the power to raise Jesus Christ from the dead, and promises to raise again each and every one of us who believes.  We participate and share in that life!  Grace is an amazing reality indeed!

The Catechism goes on to speak also about actual grace and sacramental grace (CCC, #2003), specific moments in our everyday lives in which the power of God is at work to help us “respond to his call and to become children of God.”  Maybe it will be a moment of temptation in which we know from experience we have failed in the past; God suddenly provides for us a means and a way to be faithful.  Certainly when we receive our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Eucharist we are given grace to live fully in Him and to conform ourselves more completely to His plan for our lives.  When we make a good, integral confession and seek the mercy of God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we receive the grace of forgiveness and the strength necessary to avoid the sins that cause us sorrow and pain. 

St. Thérèse of Lisieux would go on to say that “All is grace.”  Every hot meal we have on the table, every good relationship that God has brought into our lives, the beauty that we experience on a daily basis; these gifts from God are sent to help us grow closer to Him and to each other.  Our lives are so very filled with grace.

One of the greatest American Catholic authors of all time is a woman named Flannery O’Connor.  Born in 1925 in Savannah, Georgia, she died far too young at the age of 39 from the devastating disease of lupus.  O'Connor once said that all of her stories were about grace.  Now, if you have never read Flannery O’Connor before, you might be thinking, “How nice.  I should like to buy one of her books and read these nice stories.”  Be forewarned!  All of Flannery O’Connor’s stories deal with difficult themes and challenging characters.  Her stories look unflinchingly at such things as racism, discrimination, hatred and anger.  O’Connor’s characters are often arrogant, self-righteous, narrow minded and even violent. 

You might be asking yourself by now, “What in the world does that have to do with grace?”  To answer that question we must look at the full quote from Flannery herself:

“All of my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.”

Grace, if received well and assimilated into the life of the believer, would have the power to change and transform our lives and make them truly beautiful.  What O’Connor is communicating is that grace, when rejected and refused, makes us—to use her own word—“grotesque.”  We become something God never intended us to be.  When we read one of O’Connor’s stories we watch a character and are horrified to see the way she despises and looks down on others; or we watch a man who is on a collision course for destruction and is doing nothing to avoid it.  We are so moved within at the “grotesque” nature of grace’s rejection that we determine never to put ourselves in the same situation. 

If we look at the Scriptures that we are given for this weekend we can see similar stories from the Old Testament and also in the New.  In the First Reading, the Prophet Jeremiah finds himself stuck in the mud, literally.  He is a man who has received the grace of God, and the message of God for His people; it is not a very positive message.  If you go back just a few verses from the passage we are given this weekend in Jeremiah 38, the message entrusted to the prophet for the people of Israel could be summarized thus:  You have sinned and failed to keep the commandments of God.  Therefore God has determined to give you to the Babylonians.  If you humble yourselves, however, and surrender yourselves to them, although you will be carried away captive He will save you and you will live (see Jeremiah 38:1-3).

Their reaction?  The princes of the people approach the king and say:

“Jeremiah ought to be put to death; he is demoralizing the soldiers who are left in this city, and all the people, by speaking such things to them; he is not interested in the welfare of our people, but in their ruin.”

—Jeremiah 38:4

The king looks the other way and allows them to throw Jeremiah in the cistern, where he would have starved to death if Ebed-melech the Cushite had not rescued him by the end of that reading.  This is a very ugly scene!  They have rejected the grace and salvation God has offered them.  Instead of embracing Jeremiah with gratitude they brutalize him, to their own detriment.  Historically, it did not end well for the Israelites in that city.  Grace rejected is a grotesque reality indeed.

Similarly, in the Gospel we hear Jesus’ astounding message:

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.

—Luke 12:51

How are we to understand this, and from the “Prince of Peace”?  What Christ is talking about is the nature of the Gospel message and the grace that God offers to each of us in His self-emptying love. 

At the heart of the Gospel proclamation, God essentially reveals that, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).  We are all in desperate need of forgiveness and God’s mercy.  And yet that is precisely what God has come to bring us in the person of Jesus Christ.  He comes to suffer and die on the cross in self-emptying love in order to grant us a forgiveness we do not deserve, to make us God’s own adopted children, and bring us into eternal life with God. 

Some hear that message and are overwhelmed with gratitude and filled with love.  A tremendous sense of joy enters our hearts when we realize, despite all our failings and sins, how we are truly loved and embraced by God.  Our hearts are set on fire with this message of God’s mercy and love.  As Christ proclaims so powerfully in the Gospel this weekend: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” (Luke 12:49).  We are moved from deep within to go out and spread that message to all we meet: family, friends, strangers, enemies, all.  We want everyone to know about the forgiveness now available to us in the person of Jesus Christ.

But not everyone receives that message.  Some, in fact, are quite offended by it.  Forgiveness?  Me?  For what! I am fine just the way I am!  Like the princes in the reading this weekend in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah or the characters in a Flannery O’Connor story, they reject implicitly that there could be anything at all in their lives in need of correction.  Why should they need to receive “favor, the free underserved help that God gives”? 

Their rejection of the grace God offers becomes, instead, resentment toward those who are trying to share this same message of salvation.  Called by God to become something truly beautiful, they become something God never intends or desires.  We are left, then, with what Christ describes in the Gospel:

From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

—Luke  12:52-53

It is not the way Christ wants it, but simply and sadly the way He finds it; grace that has now been replaced by the “grotesque.”

Here in the Eucharist and throughout this coming week, grace will enter into our lives and draw us into a deeper relationship with God.  Here and everywhere throughout these coming days we encounter “favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call and to become children of God, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life”  (CCC, #1996).  As God makes known to us His unconditional love and mercy, He will also reveal to us places where we need correction, places we need to grow in our love for God and others, areas we need to be less self-righteous, more humble, more forgiving. 

How might we surrender more completely to that work of grace in our lives and in our souls so that we can become truly beautiful, transformed by the merciful love of God, to be the men and women God has always meant us to be?

What Motivates You?

Crucifixion, sketched by St. John of the Cross

(15th Sunday in Ordinary Time-Year C; This homily was given on 13 July at St. Francis Xavier in East Providence, R.I. and 14 July at St. Elizabeth in Bristol, R.I. See Colossians 1:15-20 and Luke 10: 25-37)

What motivates you?  What are you passionate about?  What is the driving force behind what you do, day in and day out?  Certainly for many people it is family, relationships, hopefully our vocation (be it Marriage, Priesthood or Religious Life).  But sadly for many people in our culture today the answer to those questions is not very inspiring. 

For many people today, what they are passionate about is reality TV!  We know from the ratings that people will spend hours and hours watching reality television shows, living vicariously through dysfunctional personalities that are anything but “real.”  For others the motivating force in their life is sports.   There is nothing wrong with following our favorite sports team and keeping up on our favorite players.  But if all of our time and resources are going into memorabilia and tickets that we cannot afford, or if we have left no room for anything else but the sports we enjoy then our passion has become an obsession and that game will not end well. 

For some, their passion may be work or financial investments—all good things—but if we allow them to consume our lives those very same things can become destructive. 

St. Thomas Aquinas would caution us to be prudent when it comes to our passions.  Which leads me to the point of this homily: What about the saints?  What were they passionate about?   What motivated the saints of God down through the ages?  What was the driving force behind everything they did, day in and day out?  In a word: GOD!

The saints were passionate about knowing God.  They were driven by the question: “Who is God and what is He like?   They were practically obsessed with knowing what God wanted, so that they could do those things.   The saints longed to discover what God hated and disdained, so that they could avoid those things.  They wanted to know God.  Passionately.  Always.  Everywhere.

One of the most passionate among them is the Apostle, St. Paul.  In our Second Reading this weekend, St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, he shares with us what he has discovered about God through the person of Christ Jesus:

Christ Jesus is the image of the invisible God.

—Colossians 1:15

From the first day that he encountered Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus (see Acts 9:1-19), St. Paul’s life was forever changed as he suddenly came into intimate contact with Jesus Christ.  In his Letter to the Colossians he is communicating from experience that what was once mysteriously hidden in God is now visible and tangible in the person of Jesus Christ.  Do you want to know what God thinks about this world in which we live?  Look no further than Jesus Christ, who comes here to save us and set us free from our slavery to sin.  Do you want to know how God cares for the most vulnerable and weak of this world? Look to Christ, who neither bruises the fragile reed nor snuffs out the smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20).   Do you want to know what God abhors and opposes with all of His divine strength?  Look to Christ who tolerates no hypocrisy and lays waste the mountains of pride (Luke 3:4-6).

But St. Paul, of course, would never wish us to look to Christ as a mere example.  For all that Christ would teach St. Paul by His way of life and His inspired doctrine, the image of the invisible God St. Paul refers to is a living image, not a deceased one.  Jesus Christ does not merely teach us how to live and show us the way.   He lives in us and allows us to follow His commandments in the most effective and life-giving way imaginable.  St. Paul knew that. 

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul asks: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:3-4).  We live in an entirely different way because Jesus Christ lives in us.

In his dramatic appeal to the Church at Galatia St. Paul will proclaim: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).  Following Jesus Christ is nothing less than a personal and intimate encounter with the one who is Himself “the image of the invisible God.”  He not only teaches us and guides us in the way to eternal life.  He also lives in us through the power of Baptism in the most intimate and dynamic of ways.  Understanding this wonderful truth allows us to fully grasp what Christ is communicating to us this weekend in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

When Jesus Christ relates that parable He is not merely addressing His audience as a motivational speaker.  He is not trying to say, “The Good Samaritan is a man who did good things for people.  Now you, too, should go and do lots of good things.”  No, it is something far more personal than that.  In fact, St. Augustine frames that parable in the context of our salvific relationship with Jesus Christ, our Redeemer.

St. Augustine says that the Good Samaritan in that parable is Jesus Christ Himself, who comes to us not from some foreign country but from another world altogether.  The one who has been beaten and robbed, lying half-dead by the side of the road, says Augustine, is Fallen Adam.  Waylaid by Satan and his minions, Adam has been stripped of his ability to live the life he was created for.  There is nothing that he can do now to change that.  Suddenly this Good Samaritan from Heaven, Jesus Christ the Son of God, sees him and is “moved with compassion at the sight” (Luke 10:33).   He pours the oil and wine of the Sacramental Life upon him, says Augustine, bringing healing and wholeness.  He pays for the recovery and redemption of Adam not with two silver coins but with His own self-gift, His body and blood offered graciously and with great love on the altar of the cross.  What a Good Samaritan indeed!

We do well to look to the great Spanish mystic and Doctor of the Church, St. John of the Cross, who poetically expresses the heart of this Good Samaritan and why He felt so motivated to take on our humanity and save us.  He writes, in his “Stanzas Applied Spiritually to God and the Soul”:

A lone young shepherd lived in pain

withdrawn from pleasure and contentment,

his thoughts fixed on a shepherd-girl

his heart an open wound with love.

He weeps, but not from the wound of love,

there is no pain in such affliction,

even though the heart is pierced;

he weeps in knowing he’s been forgotten.

That one thought: his shining one has forgotten him,

is such great pain

that he bows to brutal handling in a foreign land,

his heart an open wound with love.

The shepherd says: I pity the one

who draws herself back from my love,

and does not seek the joy of my presence,

though my heart is an open wound with love for her.

After a long time he climbed a tree,

and spread his shining arms,

and hung by them, and died,

his heart an open wound with love.

It may seem hard for us to imagine, but God is more saddened by our unwillingness to turn to Him for help and healing than He is by the sins we commit.  How far He is willing to go—willing even to bow to “brutal handling in a foreign land”—if only we will recognize Him as our Divine Bridegroom and return love for love.  The Good Samaritan has come so far, and given so much!

The heart of Jesus Christ is “an open wound with love,” waiting for us to return to Him and to receive the healing and forgiveness we all long for.  If that does not motivate us, than nothing will!

Friends in Christ, there are not enough motivational speakers in the entire world to transform us deep within and take us away from the selfishness and the sins that so easily beset us.  There are not enough hours of motivational talks or enough authors of motivational books to ever effect the change that we all pine for in our personal lives and in society. 

Yet one Man, who is Himself “the image of the invisible God” has the power to change and transform our souls and the world around us.  How is God challenging each of us to encounter that one Man, that Good Samaritan, this week?  How might we allow the Sacramental Life of the Church—the regeneration we have received in Baptism; the grace of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Reconciliation; the power of Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist; the outpouring of the Holy Spirit we have received at Confirmation; and the Sacraments in which Christ has poured the oil and wine of salvation upon us—how might we allow that new life to heal us and set us free to live the Christian life like never before?

Because the world we live in is desperate to see “the image of the invisible God,” desperate to encounter the living God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in a personal and meaningful way.  Might they see and encounter Him more completely in us this week.