I remember as a teen being snubbed by a friend at somebody's birthday party. I felt furious and wanted to belt him hard at the first opportunity. I never got the chance to do it, but got back at him in other ways. Somehow, I needed to get even - and I did, eventually. Got even, felt good !
This Sunday's Gospel is all about forgiveness, surrendering the right to get even. This is Herculean, big time surrender. I remember a brother in a religious community telling me about his struggle to forgive another brother who had lied about him. 'Can you see the day when you will be able to forgive that guy?' I asked. 'I think about it a lot, and pray about it a lot,' he said, 'and maybe I might be able to do it from my head. But from my heart....? I don't think I could ever like this guy or trust him again. Sometimes when I pray I feel I need to get even.' 'If you can do it from your head you've made the cut,' I told him. 'You don't have to like him or take him on a picnic. But would you be willing to give him food if he needed it, or a cup of cold water if he couldn't get one?' 'Yes,' he said. I think that's all Christ asks; that we feed the hungry and give a drink to those who are thirsty.
That's the pass course. There's an honors course to this as well. Back in the days of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, the second century, there was a story about a woman who became pregnant out of wedlock. She found herself being ostracized by the townsfolk and blamed a monk who lived in the nearby wilderness for raping her. The whole town was indignant with the monk, who said, 'Not me.' He was brought before the local judge and was told 'You must raise this child.' The monk simply said 'Yes.' After ten years, the mother of the child confessed that she had lied and wanted the child back. He immediately returned the child which had been imposed on him in a terrible time of injustice, forgave the woman, and went back to his life of prayer and penance. He never tried to get even.
St. Paul says in the second reading this Sunday that 'None of us lives for oneself...for if we live, we live for the Lord.' This is a harsh truth for our narcissistic culture to swallow: My life is not about me. We belong to God. Maybe our problem with forgiving comes from an over-substantial sense of the self, our own importance. When somebody hurts us our instinct is to cry out, 'How dare you upset me! How dare you interfere with my life! Can't you see my life is all about me!' A shift in consciousness is required in order to understand Christ's words about forgiving 'not seven times but seventy times seven,' i.e. on and on...always, always…!
How is this transition of consciousness accomplished? Concerns of the ego and justice muddy our waters all the time, implying that my life is about me. First, we have to get on top of the reality that all we are and all we have is God's gift. The death-bed words of the saintly country priest in Georges Bernanos' 'Diary of a Country Priest' - 'all is grace (gift)' - is basic
Christianity, one of the most basic themes in scripture. God is all self-sufficient; has no need of the universe that he created out of love, and continues to create moment by moment. Creation is not something that happened long ago. It's happening to you and to me at this moment. Thomas Aquinas said, 'As the air is lit up only as long as the sun shines in it, so we exist only insofar as God sustains us.' Our whole existence and experience of life is a gift we neither earned nor do we deserve.
Secondly, it would help if we got to know one of Thomas Merton's descriptions of prayer: 'Finding a place in you where right now you are being created by God.' He developed this from the third century Christian writer, Origen, who said that prayer is about becoming 'conscious of who we are in the creation process.' That semi-contemplative kind of prayer is designed to bring us to realize that life is a gift and that it's not just about ourselves. Far from being in charge of our own lives, we are part of God's drama.
God's drama, revealed by Christ, is essentially about redemption, the gift of forgiveness. We do not earn God's forgiveness; it is gift all the way. Nobody can earn our forgiveness; it's about sharing the gift God has given us. That which we receive as a gift, we are told to give as a gift. In a word, we try to forgive because we have been forgiven. From that perspective, forgiveness from the heart may be doable. It's quite possible that the monk long ago was there, and maybe the religious brother was on the way. I was light years off the track at that birthday party long ago!
PASTOR EMERITUS
A blessing for you and yours…Satan has deceived the whole world into believing in a God of hate and revenge (Satan). Now you can know the true God because the woman of Revelation 12 is now here. God is precise: It is a woman Rev 12 that delivers the true word John1:1, Rev 12:5, Rev 12:13 who restores Acts 3:21 all things to the world before Christ’s return. This woman exposes the lies of Satan who has deceived the whole world Rev 12:9. This woman creates a new thing in the earth by fulfilling God's promise to Eve Gen 3:15, Jer 31:22, Isa 14:16. Moses and Elijah are together with the word Matt 17:3 they all three are in this one woman. She is like unto Moses Num 12:3. She was raised up Acts 3:22 from the Laodicean church that becomes lukewarm because they refused to hear her Rev 3:14-17. She is bold like Elijah Matt 17:11, Luke 1:17. As Elijah was alone declaring the true God to the people 1 Kings 18:22 so also her witness alone turns the hearts of the fathers to the children Mal 4:5-6 to prepare a people for the Lords return before the great and dreadful day of the Lord Matt 17:3, Luke 9:30. Those who will not hear Acts 3:23 the true word of God she now delivers to the world free of charge, as a witness, at the heel of time from the wilderness Rev 12:6 will not be allowed inside the walls of God’s coming kingdom from heaven Rev 21. This true testimony of the true value of the blood of the Lamb delivers the truth that not one child of God will be put in a hell fire no matter what their sins. It never entered the heart or mind of God to ever do such a thing Jer 7:31, Jer 19:5. God created evil Isa 45:7 to teach his children the knowledge of good and evil Rom 8:7, Gen 3:22 so that at their resurrection they become a god Matt 22:29-30, Ps 82:6 and are placed Ezek 37:26 in God’s world. Prove all things. You cannot rightly judge this unless you read all that has been written by this woman first Pro 18:13. Start here http://minigoodtale.wordpress.com Check out the bruising of Satan and the reason for all of mankind’s sufferings. This is the Gospel that shall be preached in all the world as a witness and then the end will come.
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