The Lord is My Divinely Merciful Shepherd

“Do not be afraid,” says the Lord, “once I was dead, but now I am alive.”

Here’s a question. If we had to name the single most famous and beloved little part of the Bible, worldwide, what would it be? Everybody’s favorite? Right, Psalm 23.  Everybody loves the 23^rd Psalm. [Spanish]

The Lord God Almighty rules the cosmos not as a capricious tyrant, nor as an absentee landlord, but as an attentive shepherd. He knows what we need, and He provides. Our spirits droop; He revives us. We get lost; He leads us back to the path of life. We walk through a dark valley, but we fear no evil. Because we feel His crook and His staff on our little flanks, keeping us moving forward, even through the darkness.

He knows where He leads. To a table with an overflowing cup, and the oil of gladness. To the house of the Lord. To unending goodness and kindness.

St. Faustina Kowalska

Ok, now: Everyone familiar with the image of Divine Mercy? The picture of Himself which the Lord revealed to St. Faustina, during the 20^th century? A famous painting, with the Lord Jesus in white, with rays of light flowing from His Sacred Heart. The pale rays signify the water of Holy Baptism. The red rays signify Christ’s Precious Blood, shed for our salvation.

Anyway, is it going too far to say this? The Divine Mercy image gives us the perfect visual depiction of the 23^rd Psalm. If we could translate the words of Psalm 23, not into Spanish or Swahili, but into an image—wouldn’t it be the Divine Mercy image revealed to St. Faustina? Give me an Amen?

Do not be afraid. Once I was dead. But now I am alive.

Fear can do us good. I live in mortal fear of getting up to talk, without anything properly prepared to say. Parents fear that certain videogame devices will swallow-up whole their children’s heads and hands and necks. And we all rightly fear that we would offend God, that we would displease our Creator and Father.

But one thing has always distinguished Christians from everyone else. We do not fear death.

At least we don’t fear death when we focus and meditate. Human beings naturally recoil from dying, by a kind of kneejerk instinct for survival. That can’t be avoided. But a Christian meditates, prays, puts everything in the hands of the divine Shepherd. The Christian entrusts his natural life to the loving Lord Whose Heart lies open, with blood and water flowing out for our salvation. The Christian meditates on all this, and finds peace, even in the face of imminent, unavoidable death. The martyrs of Christ have sung their way into the lions’ den.

Do not be afraid, says the Lord. I Myself was dead. But now I am alive.

That the Lord emancipates us from fear, relieving us of the deepest anxiety: that is indeed a great work of mercy. We can live in the truth. We can face reality as it is. Not running away. Not deadening our minds and perceptions with false comforts and fantasies. We need not fear the unknown. We need not fear whatever lies beyond, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.

Jesus, I trust in You. I know that You will forgive every sin I confess. I know that you will go to any length, to keep this little lamb on the safe path. Thomas doubted. So You came back a second time.

Christ lived His Paschal Mystery–the most-bitter suffering and the most-sublime triumph—He underwent His Passover–so that the 23^rd Psalm could be not just a pious canticle for us, but the most fundamental reality of our entire consciousness. Jesus Christ—the Divine Mercy, the Alpha and the Omega, Thomas’ patient friend—Jesus turns our day-to-day existence into a living, breathing Psalm 23. Fear no evil, because goodness and kindness will follow you.  A table will be spread before you.  You will dwell in the house of the Lord.

What can we not accomplish, for the glory of the Father, when Christ purges fear from our souls? What feats of tender, patient love can we not undertake, with joy, when we possess Christian fearlessness? We will conquer the earth with love! Let’s start right here. Let’s conquer our little corner of the earth with love. Seriously.

He will see us through. His mercy endures forever. Though we dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, we will not want for anything.

Mercy at the Beginning and the End

That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. (Matthew 9:6)

The mercy of God. We repent of our sins, beg His mercy, and receive forgiveness in the confessional.

Does ‘mercy’ mean, then: Forgiving the one who repents, and starting fresh, rather than holding the offense against the offender? Yes.

But there is more. Mercy comes at the end of reconciliation. But it also comes at the beginning.

God became the Lamb and spread out His arms on the cross first. Christ crucified revealed to the sinful human race the unfathomable depths of the eternal and infinite mercy of God.

Examining our consciences to prepare for a good confession takes mucho courage. None of us could ever find that kind of courage, except that we know ahead of time that God forgives. He loves us with the love of an infinitely patient father, who has taken out a huge insurance policy on the family car and smiles when we smash it up on our learner’s permit. We admit the truth because we know we have nothing to fear. ‘Okay, yes, dad. I was driving blindfolded. So-and-so dared me to do it.’

So: On the one hand, we reject the idea of “cheap grace.” You can’t presume on God’s love and never bother to search yourself, acknowledge your sins, and work hard to do better.

But, by the same token: we do not start with slavish fear of judgment. That only leads to compulsiveness and pharisaism anyway. We start with Christ crucified for the whole human race. We start knowing that God loves with mercy, that He made us out of love and mercy in the first place, and that our very desire to live in His friendship is itself a free gift of His mercy.

Two Debtors in Order

At Holy Mass this Sunday, we read the account of the Lord Jesus’ visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee.  Within that account, we hear a parable, the Parable of the Two Debtors.  Let’s study the parable a little bit first.  [Para leer en español, click  AQUI.]

One debtor owed 250 days’ wages, the other 50.  Their creditor forgave both debts.  Result:  The one who owed more loved the merciful creditor more.  You forgave me 250 days’ wages!  Thank you!  vs. You forgave me fifty days’ wages.  Thank you.

The parable helps us understand what happened in the house.  When the sinful woman entered, Simon compared himself with her like this:  righteous vs. unrighteous.  I’m righteous; she’s not.  But the Son of God compares the two quite differently.  All of fallen mankind is running some debt with the Lord.  Maybe the woman’s debt exceeded the Pharisee’s by a factor of five.  But any debt at all will land you in the bad place.

In other words:  Nothing could be more pointless than me thinking of myself as more righteous than so-and-so.  Maybe I am more righteous than so-and-so.  But that doesn’t mean that I am righteous enough.  What I have in common with so-and-so outweighs any difference between us.  We both sinners.

So now we have the meaning of the parable.  But let’s consider this:  The parable has a clear sequence.  First, debt.  Next, forgiveness of the debt.  Then, as a result of the forgiveness, love.  Debt.  Forgiveness.  Grateful love.  A clear sequence.  But, in the Lord’s interaction with the sinful woman in the Pharisee’s house, the sequence is different.  It’s debt, love, then forgiveness.

She walked into the house a notorious sinner.  Maybe a repentant sinner, but apparently an as-yet-unforgiven sinner.  She sought Christ with love.  Why?  Not because He had forgiven her already.  He hadn’t forgiven her yet.

Maybe she just wanted to lavish herself upon the beautiful, righteous One.  Christ’s magnificence as a person—His kindness, patience, gentleness, tender chastity—He makes sin look like what it is:  sad.  So maybe the woman lavished Him with love simply for walking into the world and giving her hope for a better life.

She definitely loved Him.  Lord Jesus Himself said it, as he spoke to Simon:  “You never gave me water for my feet.  But she bathed them with her tears.  You never gave me a welcoming kiss, like even we men give each other in this Middle-Eastern culture.  But she has not ceased kissing my feet, and she has anointed them, cracked and calloused as they are, with sweet, soothing ointment.”

The sinful woman loved Christ, and wept because He is so beautiful, and her life had been so ugly.  She loved Him.  So He forgave all her sins.

See what I am saying about the sequence?  The difference between the sequence of the parable, and the sequence of the events in Simon’s house—the difference is notable.  We picture the forgiven debtors in the parable jumping up with love, after their creditor tore up their IOU’s.  But the woman loved Christ first.  Then He forgave her sins.

Did Lord Jesus get confused?  Did He lose focus, and tell a parable that wasn’t exactly on-point?  Don’t think so.  To the contrary:  I think He is trying to help us get focused and on-point.

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has given us a jubilee year of mercy.  He has opened all the Church’s doors of mercy, so that we can gaze inside, so to speak, and contemplate the great divine mystery.  When we contemplate the triune God, love moves us, and penance, and self-esteem.

Jesus has revealed the face of the Father.  God loves.  God loves me.  God is on my side.  God has a plan to get me to heaven.  He has a plan for me to become my true self.  The power that governs all things:  He’s a loving, kind, patient father, who only wants His children to be happy.

This is reality.  Love rules reality.  Reality, as we know it—the whole universe—exists because of the divine love.  The very fact that we exist at all is because of Divine Mercy.  And one Person—Jesus Christ—stands at the center of everything.

When we behold this truth, we see our sins for what they are:  pointless self-destruction.  We see our egotism for what it is:  preposterous self-delusion.  We see our self-centered anxiety for what it is:  pride.  When we behold the bottomless graciousness of God, we repent of all our shallow, chicken-scratch smallness.  And we just love Him, because He is so awesome.  We go to confession, and it’s like our sins never happened.  And of course that makes us love Him even more.

The Lord’s gaze upon us has no “sequence”:  it’s just merciful love.  He gazes at us with merciful love, always.

This divine gaze offers us renewal, a change, and a fresh start, at the very same time that it offers acceptance and esteem.  When we look back at Him with love, we feel repentance; we feel contrition; and we feel supreme confidence, all at once.

The Lord is My Divine Mercy

“Do not be afraid,” says the Lord, “once I was dead, but now I am alive.” (Revelation 1)

Here’s a question.  If we had to name the single most famous and beloved little part of the Bible, worldwide, what would it be?  Everybody’s favorite?  Right, Psalm 23.  Everybody loves the 23^rd Psalm.

The Lord God Almighty rules the cosmos not as a capricious tyrant, nor as an absentee landlord, but as an attentive shepherd.  He knows what we need, and He provides.  Our spirits droop; He revives us.  We get lost; He leads us back to the path of life.  We walk through a dark valley, but we fear no evil.  Because we feel His crook and His staff on our little flanks, keeping us moving forward, even through the darkness.

He knows where He leads.  To a table with an overflowing cup, and the oil of gladness.  To the house of the Lord.  To unending goodness and kindness.

Ok, now:  Everyone familiar with the image of Divine Mercy?  The picture of Himself which the Lord revealed to St. Faustina, during the 20^th century?   A famous painting, with the Lord Jesus in white, with rays of light flowing from His Sacred Heart.  The pale rays signify the water of Holy Baptism.  The red rays signify Christ’s Precious Blood, shed for our salvation.

Anyway, is it going too far to say this:  That the Divine Mercy image really gives us the perfect visual depiction of the 23^rd Psalm?  If we could translate the words of Psalm 23, not into Spanish or Swahili, but into an image—wouldn’t it be the Divine Mercy image revealed to St. Faustina?  Give me an Amen?

Do not be afraid.  Once I was dead.  But now I am alive.

Fear can do us good.  I live in mortal fear of getting up in the pulpit to talk, without anything properly prepared to say.  Parents fear that certain videogame devices will swallow-up whole their children’s heads and hands and necks.  And we all rightly fear that we would offend God, that we would displease our Creator and Father.

But one thing has always distinguished Christians from everyone else.  We do not fear death.

At least we don’t fear death when we focus and meditate.  Human beings naturally recoil from dying, by a kind of kneejerk instinct for survival.  That can’t be avoided, and it’s a good thing.  But a Christian meditates, prays, puts everything in the hands of the divine Shepherd.  The Christian entrusts his natural life to the loving Lord Whose Heart lies open, with blood and water flowing out for our salvation.  The Christian meditates on all this, and finds peace, even in the face of imminent, unavoidable death.  The martyrs of Christ have sung their way into the lions’ den, or to the stake, or to the gibbet.

Do not be afraid, says the Lord.  I Myself was dead.  But now I am alive.

Divine Mercy Sunday during the Jubilee Year of Mercy!  We won’t see another such day in our lifetimes!

That the Lord emancipates us from fear, relieving us of the deepest anxiety:  that is indeed a great work of mercy.  We can live in the truth.  We can face reality as it is.  Not running away.  Not deadening our minds and perceptions with false comforts and fantasies.  Because, truly, we have nothing to fear.

Jesus, I trust in You.  I know that You will forgive every sin I confess.  I know that you will go to any length, to keep this little lamb on the safe path.  Thomas doubted.  So You came back to the Upper Room a second time.

Christ lived His Paschal Mystery–the most-bitter suffering and the most-sublime triumph—He underwent His Passover–so that the 23^rd Psalm could be not just a pious canticle for us, but the most fundamental reality of our entire consciousness.  Jesus Christ—the Divine Mercy, the Alpha and the Omega, Thomas’ patient friend—Jesus turns our day-to-day existence into a living, breathing Psalm 23.  Fear no evil, because goodness and kindness will follow you.  A table will be spread before you.  You will dwell in the house of the Lord.

What else do we read in Sacred Scripture?  Perfect love casts out fear.  His perfect love for us casts out our fears.  We need not fear the unknown.  We need not fear whatever lies beyond, the undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns.

What can we not accomplish, for the glory of the Father, when Christ purges fear from our souls?  What feats of tender, patient love can we not undertake, with joy, when we possess Christian fearlessness?  We will conquer the earth with love!  Let’s start right here.  Let’s conquer the Roanoke Valley with love.  Seriously.

He will see us through.  His mercy endures forever.  Though we dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, we will not want for anything.

 

 

Popes from the Same Cloth

Three years ago, we heard the same readings, and celebrated the same Feast of Divine Mercy, after a late-April Easter.

Three years ago, my mind turned to St. Peter’s Square in Rome, because my hero was being beatified. And my mind turns to Rome again, of course, because he is being canonized.

Actually, can we go back to the year 2000?

John 8:51-49

The words and deeds of Jesus Christ: too outrageous to allow for any compromise. And too beautiful to be blasphemy.

Everyone—Pharisees, Sadducees, Apostles, disciples, God-fearers, olive-pressers, shepherds, Jerusalem street-sweepers, everyone—agreed on one thing: Abraham held the true faith. Abraham believed in God, and the God in Whom Abraham believed is real.

Can we search the Scriptures and find the episode that most reveals the content of Abraham’s faith? …certainly, when he was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, out of obedience to God, yes.

But what about when he pleaded for the city of Sodom?

“Lord, if there are fifty innocent men in the city? Or forty-five, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or ten? Spare the city for their sakes!”

So it seems that Abraham believed in an infinitely powerful, all-knowing God of mercy, who would forget His justified and righteous anger against the human race for the sake of one truly innocent man. Our father in faith believed correctly, because a. he was ready to obey, and b. he knew that God had compassion, love, and pity for us in our human misery.

Indeed, Abraham was right. Even though fire and brimstone fell on ancient Sodom in the end, because the Lord couldn’t find any innocent people left there, Abraham was nonetheless absolutely right that God is Mercy.

God Himself knew, of course, that Abraham was right. It’s just that the day of mercy was yet to come. Abraham looked forward to it. Abraham fell asleep looking forward to his descendants receiving the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Then the day came. The merciful God came to earth and spoke, a man among men. He said things that would have been blasphemies worthy of stoning, except that this man saying them is God.

Abraham rejoiced to see my day.

Yes, Lord, because this Sodom in which we live has been spared because of You!

Before Abraham came to be, I am.

Amen, Jesus. All glory to You, O uncreated, crucified Mercy and Love, as in the beginning, now, and unto the ages of ages forever.

—

Measuring “Measure for Measure” Again

Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure”—ostensibly a comedy—“obsesses over death,” “plays like a funeral march,” “exposes the emptiness of the romantic genre,” “leaves the audience wondering if they just watched a comedy or a tragedy.”

A comedy about death and judgment. You know I am into it.

As you may recall, we covered “Measure for Measure” in some detail in the fall of 2008. But time passes, and a man matures. Back then I called the conclusion a “deus ex machina mess.” What a fool. (Me.)

One theory proposes that Shakespeare wrote “Measure for Measure”—and made it so dark and uncomical—to show the world that he had gotten sick of writing plays in which everyone marries each other in the end. After “Measure for Measure,” the Bard never wrote another comedy.

Meryl Streep as Isabella in Shakespeare in the Park 1976

According to this theory: Earlier comedies have more-satisfying conclusions. When “Much Ado About Nothing”’s Beatrice and Benedict get together, the world shines forth with new luster. When “The Taming of the Shrew’s” Petruchio kisses Kate, birds sing with more perfect harmony than they did before. When Lysander, Demetrius, Helena, and Hermia get everything sorted out in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” the fairy kingdom rejoices with the human kingdom. We definitely like it when Orlando and Rosalind marry. But when everyone pairs off at the end of “Measure for Measure,” it makes no sense. No subsequent picnic under an arbor fills the imagination. So goes the theory of Shakespeare’s ultimate dissatisfaction with the genre.

Perhaps there is something to this theory. After all, Shakespeare wrote one other non-comedy comedy that involves: 1) an almost unbelievably obtuse husband-to-be, 2) a duke seeking justice, and 3) a cover-of-darkness tryst-bed switcheroo, in which a man intending to fornicate unknowingly sleeps with his own wife. “All’s Well that Ends Well” has all these elements, too. And he wrote that play immediately before he wrote “Measure for Measure.”

But, IMHO, “Measure for Measure” does not crash and burn, like the critics say it does. It crashes and burns in a much more Biblical way.

Full Message of the OT: Niagara Falls

Though the mountains fall away and the hills be shaken,
My love shall never fall away from you
nor my covenant of peace be shaken,
says the LORD, who has mercy on you.
O afflicted one, storm-battered and unconsoled,
I lay your pavements in carnelians, your foundations in sapphires;
I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of jewels,
and all your walls of precious stones.
All your children shall be taught by the LORD;
great shall be the peace of your children.
In justice shall you be established, far from oppression,
you shall not fear, from destruction, it cannot come near.
If there be an attack, it is not my doing;
whoever attacks shall fall before you. (Isaiah 54)

This is the full passage to which the Lord Jesus refers in our gospel reading today.

Let’s propose the following: The full summary of the Old Testament could be made with one sentence. Thus saith the Lord, “My children, you have made a terrible mess of things, but the infinite power of My tender love is coming your way—in an overwhelming cascade of gentle mercy.”

They shall all be taught by God that He loves, no matter what. The bread that I will give is my Flesh, for the life of the world. Whoever believes has eternal life.

Brothers and sisters, let’s take a trip to the Niagara Falls of Divine Love by celebrating the Mass as the Lamb of God has commanded.

Puvis de Chavannes + St. Thomas’ Recovery

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: interesting painter

How did St. Thomas manage to miss the Lord Jesus on Easter Sunday?

“Gosh, I would love to hang out with you brother Apostles in the Upper Room and pray the afternoon away, but—wouldn’t you know it!—I have a conflict. Catch up with you next Sunday!”

Okay. Thomas had a lot of friends and associates. Kept busy. Always on the go. No harm in that.

But: when Thomas refused to believe his old friends when they said the Lord had risen from the dead—should we fault him for that?

“He came here. Flesh and blood. And He gave us the Holy Spirit.”

“No He didn’t.”

“Yes. He did.”

“No He didn’t.”

“Yes. He did.”

“No He didn’t.”

“Thomas, you’re hopeless.”

Me, God’s Priest, and God

His mercy endures forever. (Psalm 118)

The Solemnity of Easter lasts for eight days–a week and a day, from Sunday to Sunday. It is the biggest feastday of all, too big for just twenty-four hours.

On the eighth day of Easter in the year 2000, Pope John Paul II declared that this day is ‘Divine Mercy Sunday.’ He declared this while he was canonizing St. Faustina Kowalska, the nun who had seen the vision of Jesus with rays of merciful love pouring out from His Heart.

When the Pope declared that the eighth day of Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday, he noted that none of the prayers or readings of the Mass needed to be changed. From the beginning, from the first eight days after our Lord rose from the dead, the Solemnity of Easter has been the feast of divine mercy.

When the Lord Jesus spoke to the Apostles after He rose from the dead, He commissioned them to preach His message. The message is: Repent of your sins, and be forgiven!

The Apostles obeyed. When St. Peter preached to the citizens of Jerusalem, he addressed the very people who had stood in front of Pontius Pilate’s praetorium and clamored for Christ’s crucifixion. St. Peter spoke to these enemies of Christ and said, “You denied the holy and righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. The author of life you put to death…Repent, therefore!”

Dear brothers and sisters: If we want to keep this holy feast, the feast that lasts for a week and a day, the feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, the feast of Divine Mercy—if we want to keep this feast in sincerity and truth, then we must acknowledge that we are the very citizens to whom St. Peter spoke.