The texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary today remind us that the path that leads to serious sin and the road to grow in Christian love begin with small changes in our behaviour.
On the path
The reading from the Second Book of Samuel describes how David commits adultery with Bathsheba and has Uriah Killed.
“Place Uriah up front, where the fighting is fierce. Then pull back and leave him to be struck down dead.”1
* [Psalm 51] A lament, the most famous of the seven Penitential Psalms, prays for the removal of the personal and social disorders that sin has brought. The poem has two parts of approximately equal length: Ps 51:3–10 and Ps 51:11–19, and a conclusion in Ps 51:20–21. The two parts interlock by repetition of “blot out” in the first verse of each section (Ps 51:3, 11), of “wash (away)” just after the first verse of each section (Ps 51:4) and just before the last verse (Ps 51:9) of the first section, and of “heart,” “God,” and “spirit” in Ps 51:12, 19. The first part (Ps 51:3–10) asks deliverance from sin, not just a past act but its emotional, physical, and social consequences. The second part (Ps 51:11–19) seeks something more profound than wiping the slate clean: nearness to God, living by the spirit of God (Ps 51:12–13), like the relation between God and people described in Jer 31:33–34. Nearness to God brings joy and the authority to teach sinners (Ps 51:15–16). Such proclamation is better than offering sacrifice (Ps 51:17–19). The last two verses express the hope that God’s good will toward those who are cleansed and contrite will prompt him to look favorably on the acts of worship offered in the Jerusalem Temple (Ps 51:19 [20–21]).2
In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus teaches with the Parable of the Growing Seed and the Parable of the Mustard Seed.
* [4:1–34] In parables (Mk 4:2): see note on Mt 13:3. The use of parables is typical of Jesus’ enigmatic method of teaching the crowds (Mk 4:2–9, 12) as compared with the interpretation of the parables he gives to his disciples (Mk 4:10–25, 33–34) to each group according to its capacity to understand (Mk 4:9–11). 3
Barbara Dilly comments that David was certainly a sinner. Yet, he is a role model for Christians because he genuinely repented for his sins.
But sincere confession does take confidence in God’s love and goodness. Through Jesus, any barriers to God as a result of our sins and our limited understanding of God’s love have been removed. All we need is faith. And it seems to me, in my practice, that faith can grow if we daily confess our sins, believing in God’s forgiveness. Our faith grows stronger when we trust that no matter what evil we have done, God does not turn against us. Instead, God turns away from our sins. God blots them out, forgives us and continues to love us. In my experience, our faith grows when we feel that love more strongly every day and rejoice in it. I pray today that all Christians can feel that love more strongly each day as we practice honest confessions.4
Don Schwager quotes “God gave us what was most precious,” by Isaac of Nineveh (a Syrian monk, teacher, and bishop), 613-700 A.D.
"The sum of all is God, the Lord of all, who from love of his creatures has delivered his Son to death on the cross. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son for it. Not that he was unable to save us in another way, but in this way it was possible to show us his abundant love abundantly, namely, by bringing us near to him by the death of his Son. If he had anything more dear to him, he would have given it to us, in order that by it our race might be his. And out of his great love he did not even choose to urge our freedom by compulsion, though he was able to do so. But his aim was that we should come near to him by the love of our mind. And our Lord obeyed his Father out of love for us." (excerpt from ASCETICAL HOMILY 74.28)5
The Word Among Us Meditation on 2 Samuel 11:1-10, 13-17 comments that David’s downward spiral began because he wasn’t doing what he should have been doing in the first place. Unfaithfulness to his duties led to even more unfaithfulness. And that can happen to us too.
Are you being faithful to what God is calling you to do, or are you getting bored and wandering off? You can find joy even in your mundane tasks or repetitive duties because God is there. So try to approach each routine task with a desire to please God. He will bless your faithfulness and pour out his grace to draw you closer to him. “Lord, help me to follow you faithfully!”6
Nicholas Austin SJ, teacher of Ethics at Heythrop College, University of London, examines the history of the seven deadly sins, asking what accounts for their perennial attraction. What accounts for the perduring fascination of the seven deadly sins? Pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony and sloth: throughout the ages, this list of vices has occupied and preoccupied theologians and philosophers, pastors and penitents. It is in Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) that we find the most systematic explanation of the seven sins.
For Thomas, evil as such never motivates the soul. Human appetite always inclines itself towards something perceived as good, as desirable. The capital vices, therefore, can only motivate and attract the human soul because they ‘participate in some way in some aspect of happiness’.[4] Truly flourishing people, for example, lack nothing and are content with what they have, and avarice seems to promise this kind of self-sufficiency. Similarly, no one can be happy without pleasure, and lust and gluttony seem to offer this in abundance; true beatitude is characterised by peace and rest, and sloth offers some semblance of this; and the self-assertion of pride imitates the true freedom of those who have a healthy self-esteem grounded in humility. As DeYoung comments, ‘The vices have such attractive power because they promise a good that seems like true human perfection and complete happiness.’[5]7
The Franciscan Media article on Saint Thomas Aquinas notes that The Summa Theologiae, his last and, unfortunately, uncompleted work, deals with the whole of Catholic theology. He stopped work on it after celebrating Mass on December 6, 1273. When asked why he stopped writing, he replied, “I cannot go on…. All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me.” He died March 7, 1274.
We can look to Thomas Aquinas as a towering example of Catholicism in the sense of broadness, universality, and inclusiveness. We should be determined anew to exercise the divine gift of reason in us, our power to know, learn, and understand. At the same time we should thank God for the gift of his revelation, especially in Jesus Christ.8
Brian McLaren explores fellowship as he invites us to imagine that we are among the disciples in John’s Gospel, gathering together in Jerusalem after Jesus’ death.
Whatever else this uprising will become, from that night we’ve known it is an uprising of fellowship, a community where anyone who wants to be part of us will be welcome. Jesus showed us his scars, and we’re starting to realize we don’t have to hide ours. So fellowship is for scarred people, and for scared people, and for people who want to believe but aren’t sure what or how to believe. When we come together just as we are, we begin to rise again, to believe again, to hope again, to live again.9
The loneliness and selfishness of sin is contrasted with Christian fellowship through which the seeds planted by the Spirit grow into fullness of life.
* [3:1–8] The fourteen pairs of opposites describe various human activities. The poem affirms that God has determined the appropriate moment or “time” for each. Human beings cannot know that moment; further, the wider course of events and purposes fixed by God are beyond them as well.
The Gospel from Luke emphasizes the role of prayer in our preparation to live as Jesus describes to His disciples.
* [9:18–22] This incident is based on Mk 8:27–33, but Luke has eliminated Peter’s refusal to accept Jesus as suffering Son of Man (Mk 8:32) and the rebuke of Peter by Jesus (Mk 8:33). Elsewhere in the gospel, Luke softens the harsh portrait of Peter and the other apostles found in his Marcan source (cf. Lk 22:39–46, which similarly lacks a rebuke of Peter that occurs in the source, Mk 14:37–38).
The rhythm of Ecclesiastes resonates with the theme of Inshallah in Islam. In the Gospel of Luke, important moments in Jesus journey are preceded by prayer.
* [3:21] Was praying: Luke regularly presents Jesus at prayer at important points in his ministry: here at his baptism; at the choice of the Twelve (Lk 6:12); before Peter’s confession (Lk 9:18); at the transfiguration (Lk 9:28); when he teaches his disciples to pray (Lk 11:1); at the Last Supper (Lk 22:32); on the Mount of Olives (Lk 22:41); on the cross (Lk 23:46).
What is new and different is the quality of our life after we spend time praying. That is what can be evaluated if you are into such things. The encounter comes before results just as pregnancy comes before birth. What is “new” then is the fruit of praying. Jesus was interrupted in His prayer, not just by wandering thoughts, but by wondering disciples. His relationships, His authenticity, His fidelity were the fruits of His praying in solitude. His compassionate availability was the fruit of His being so available to His humanity and His prayer.
I answer that, As was said in the II-II:83:1; II-II:83:2, prayer is the unfolding of our will to God, that He may fulfill it. If, therefore, there had been but one will in Christ, viz. the Divine, it would nowise belong to Him to pray, since the Divine will of itself is effective of whatever He wishes by it, according to Psalm 134:6: "Whatsoever the Lord pleased, He hath done." But because the Divine and the human wills are distinct in Christ, and the human will of itself is not efficacious enough to do what it wishes, except by Divine power, hence to pray belongs to Christ as man and as having a human will.
The Word Among Us Meditation is on the mention of hate in Ecclesiastes 3:1-11.
For instance, you may hate someone because of something hurtful they have said or done to you. Jesus wants to help you try to forgive. Perhaps you hate someone because they are embroiled in a pattern of sin that is overflowing to other people. Let Jesus remind you that we are all sinners. Sometimes, when a person is doing truly evil things, it is especially hard to love them. Maybe all you can do is pray. Even this is a step out of the darkness.
Friar Jude Winkler, OFM Conv, is reminded of a song by the Byrds about Ecclesiastes 3.1-11. Jesus is praying often in Luke’s Gospel. In the prediction of the passion Christ is the Messiah but not a wonder worker but the Son of Man is likened to the Suffering Servant in Second Isaiah. Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM, quotes the book “God of Love” by Mirabai Starr to show how at the nondual or contemplative levels the teachings of the three Abrahamic Traditions are quite similar, especially regarding the transformation of the separate self into union with God.
“Wash yourself of yourself,” says Rumi [a Sufi]. “Be melting snow.” In Kabbalah [Jewish mysticism], this process is known as bitul hayesh, “nullification of one’s somethingness,” and is consciously cultivated through prayer. In Christian tradition, the union of the soul with God in love is called “bridal mysticism.” And in Sufism, it is fana, where the soul attains complete unity with Allah. In every case, there is a dying of the false self into the truth of the Divine.
Authentic God experience always “burns” us, yet it does not destroy us (Exodus 3:2-3), just as the burning bush was revealed to Moses. Most of us are not prepared for such burning, nor even told to expect it. Authentic God experience is always “too much”! It consoles our True Self only after it has devastated our false self. References
