Remaining Anchored in Love

When we are anxious we are inclined to overprepare.   We wonder what to say when we are attacked, how to respond when we are being interrogated, and what defence to put up when we are accused.     It is precisely this turmoil that makes us lose our self-confidence and creates in us a debilitating self-consciousness.

Jesus tells us not to prepare at all and to trust that he will give us the words and wisdom we need.   What is important is not that we have a little speech ready but that we remain deeply anchored in the love of Jesus, secure about who we are in this world and why we are here.   With our hearts connected to the heart of Jesus, we will always know what to say when the time to speak comes.

Remaining Faithful

Many people live with the unconscious or conscious expectation that eventually things will get better; wars, hunger, poverty, oppression, and exploitation will vanish; and all people will live in harmony.   Their lives and work are motivated by that expectation.   When this does not happen in their lifetimes, they are often disillusioned and experience themselves as failures.

But Jesus doesn’t support such an optimistic outlook.   He foresees not only the destruction of his beloved city Jerusalem but also a world full of cruelty, violence, and conflict.   For Jesus there is no happy ending in this world.   The challenge of Jesus is not to solve all the world’s problems before the end of time but to remain faithful at any cost.

Keeping It Together

How can we not lose our souls when everything and everybody pulls us in the most different directions?   How can we “keep it together” when we are constantly torn apart?

Jesus says:   “Not a hair of your head will be lost.   Your perseverance will win you your lives” (Luke 21:18-19).   We can only survive our world when we trust that God knows us more intimately than we know ourselves.   We can only keep it together when we believe that God holds us together.   We can only win our lives when we remain faithful to the truth that every little part of us, yes, every hair, is completely safe in the divine embrace of our Lord.   To say it differently:   When we keep living a spiritual life, we have nothing to be afraid of.

The Coming of the Son of Man

The spiritual knowledge that we belong to God and are safe with God even as we live in a very destructive world allows us to see in the midst of all the turmoil, fear, and agony of history “the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory” (Luke 21:27).   Even though Jesus speaks about this as about a final event, it is not just one more thing that is going to happen after all the terrible things are over.   Just as the end-time is already here, so too is the coming of the Son of Man.     It is an event in the realm of the Spirit and thus not subject to the boundaries of time.

Those who live in communion with Jesus have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the second coming of Jesus among them in the here and now.   Jesus says:   “Before this generation has passed away all will have taken place” (Luke 21:32).   And this is true for each faithful generation.

Standing Erect

About the end-time Jesus says:   “There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars; on earth nations in agony, bewildered by the turmoil of the ocean and its waves;   men fainting away with terror and fear at what menaces the world, for the power of heaven will be shaken.   And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”   (Luke 21:25-28)     All of this is already taking place.   For anyone who has listened deeply to the heart of God, the despair of the world and the coming of the great liberation are both visible every day.

What then should we do?   Jesus says it clearly:   “Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand” (Luke 21:28).   There is so much hope here.   We do not have to faint but can stand straight, welcoming our Lord   with outstretched arms.

Living in a State of Preparedness

Everything that comes from God asks for an open and faithful heart.   We cannot live with hope and joy in the end-time unless we are living in a state of preparedness.   We have to be careful because, as the Apostle Peter says:   “Your enemy the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5.8).   Therefore Jesus says:   “Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened by debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life. … Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to survive all that is going to happen, and to hold your ground before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34-36).   That’s what living in the Spirit of Jesus calls us to.

Standing Under the Cross

Standing erect, holding our heads high, is the attitude of spiritually mature people in face of the calamities of our world.     The facts of everyday life are a rich source for doomsday thinking and feeling.     But it is possible for us to resist this temptation and to stand with self-confidence in this world, never losing our spiritual ground, always aware that “sky and earth will pass away” but the words of Jesus will never pass away (see Luke 21:33).

Let us be like Mary, the mother of Jesus, who stood under the cross, trusting in God’s faithfulness notwithstanding the death of his beloved Child.

Keeping Close to the Word of Jesus

The words of Jesus can keep us erect and confident in the midst of the turmoil of the end-time.   They can support us, encourage us, and give us life even when everything around us speaks of death.     Jesus’ words are food for eternal life.   They do much more than give us ideas and inspiration.   They lead us into the eternal life while we are still being clothed in mortal flesh.

When we keep close to the word of Jesus, reflecting on it, “chewing” on it, eating it as food for the soul, we will enter even more deeply into the everlasting love of God.

Meditation

When Jesus says:   “Sky and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Luke 21:33), he shows us a direct way to eternal life.   The words of Jesus have the power to transform our hearts and minds and lead us into the Kingdom of God.   “The words I have spoken to you,” Jesus says, “are spirit and they are life”   (John 6:63).

Through meditation we can let the words of Jesus descend from our minds into our hearts and create there a dwelling place for the Spirit.   Whatever we do and wherever we go, let us stay close to the words of Jesus.   They are words of eternal life.

The Created Order as Sacrament

When God took on flesh in Jesus Christ, the uncreated and the created, the eternal and the temporal, the divine and the human became united.   This unity meant that all that is mortal now points to the immortal, all that is finite now points to the infinite.   In and through Jesus all creation has become like a splendid veil, through which the face of God is revealed to us.

This is called the sacramental quality of the created order.   All that is is sacred because all that is speaks of God’s redeeming love.   Seas and winds, mountains and trees, sun, moon, and stars, and all the animals and people have become sacred windows offering us   glimpses of God.

Meeting God in the Poor

When we are not afraid to confess our own poverty, we will be able to be with other people in theirs.   The Christ who lives in our own poverty recognises the Christ who lives in other people’s.     Just as we are inclined to ignore our own poverty, we are inclined to ignore others’.   We prefer not to see people who are destitute, we do not like to look at people who are deformed or disabled, we avoid talking about people’s pains and sorrows, we stay away from brokenness, helplessness, and neediness.

By this avoidance we might lose touch with the people through whom God is manifested to us.   But when we have discovered God in our own poverty, we will lose our fear of the poor and go to them to meet God.

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The Treasure of the Poor

The poor have a treasure to offer precisely because they cannot return our favours.   By not paying us for what we have done for them, they call us to inner freedom, selflessness, generosity, and true care.     Jesus says:   “When you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again”   (Luke 14:13-14).

The repayment Jesus speaks about is spiritual.   It is the joy, peace, and love of God that we so much desire.   This is what the poor give us, not only in the afterlife but already here and now.

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Taking the Sting Out of Death  

Dying is returning home.   But even though we have been told this many times by many people, we seldom desire to return home.   We prefer to stay where we are.     We know what we have; we do not know what we will get.   Even the most appealing images of the afterlife cannot take away the fear of dying.   We cling to life, even when our relationships are difficult, our economic circumstances harsh, and our health quite poor.

Still, Jesus came to take the sting out of death and to help us gradually realise that we don’t have to be afraid of death, since death leads us to the place where the deepest desires of our hearts will be satisfied.   It is not easy for us to truly believe that, but every little gesture of trust will bring us closer to this truth.

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The Quality of Life

It is very hard to accept an early death.   When friends die who are seventy, eighty, or ninety years old, we may be in deep grief and miss them very much, but we are grateful that they had long lives.   But when a teenager, a young adult, or a person at the height of his or her career dies, we feel a protest rising from our hearts:   “Why?   Why so soon?   Why so young?   It is unfair.”

But far more important than our quantity of years is the quality of our lives.   Jesus died young.   St. Francis died young.   St. Th ƒ ©r ƒ ¨se of Lisieux died young, Martin Luther King, Jr., died young.   We do not know how long we will live, but this not knowing calls us to live every day, every week, every year of our lives to its fullest potential.

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Living Our Passages Well

Death is a passage to new life.   That sounds very beautiful, but few of us desire to make this passage.   It might be helpful to realise that our final passage is preceded by many earlier passages.   When we are born we make a passage from life in the womb to life in the family.   When we go to school we make a passage from life in the family to life in the larger community.   When we get married we make a passage from a life with many options to a life committed to one person.   When we retire we make a passage from a life of clearly defined work to a life asking for new creativity and wisdom.

Each of these passages is a death leading to new life.   When we live these passages well, we are becoming more prepared for our final passage.

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Parents’ Grief

Many parents have to suffer the death of a child, at birth or at a very young age.   There probably is no greater suffering than losing a child, since it so radically interferes with the desire of a father and mother to see their child grow up to be a beautiful, healthy, mature, and loving person.   The great danger is that the death of a child will take away the parents’ desire to live.   It requires an enormous act of faith on the part of parents to truly believe that their children, however brief their lives, were given to them as a gift from God, to deepen and enrich their own lives.

Whenever parents can make that leap of faith, their children’s short lives can become fruitful far beyond their expectations.

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Love and the Pain of Leaving

Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves to great suffering, because those we most love cause us not only great joy but also great pain.     The greatest pain comes from leaving.   When the child leaves home, when the husband or wife leaves for a long period of time or for good, when the beloved friend departs to another country or dies … the pain of the leaving can tear us apart.

Still, if we want to avoid the suffering of leaving, we will never experience the joy of loving.   And love is stronger than fear, life stronger than death, hope stronger than despair.   We have to trust that the risk of loving is always worth taking.

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Remembering the Dead

When we lose a dear friend, someone we have loved deeply, we are left with a grief that can paralyse us emotionally for a long time.     People we love become part of us.   Our thinking, feeling and acting are codetermined by them:   Our fathers, our mothers, our husbands, our wives, our lovers, our children, our friends … they are all living in our hearts.   When they die a part of us has to die too.   That is what grief is about:   It is that slow and painful departure of someone who has become an intimate part of us.   When Christmas, the new year, a birthday or anniversary comes, we feel deeply the absence of our beloved companion.   We sometimes have to live at least a whole year before our hearts have fully said good-bye and the pain of our grief recedes.     But as we let go of them they become part of our “members” and as we “re-member” them, they become our guides on our spiritual journey.

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Being Ready to Die

Death often happens suddenly.   A car accident, a plane crash, a fatal fight, a war,   a flood, and so on.   When we feel healthy and full of energy, we do not think much about our deaths.   Still, death might come very unexpectedly.

How can we be prepared to die?   By not having any unfinished relational business.   The question is:   Have I forgiven those who have hurt me and asked forgiveness from those I have hurt?   When I feel at peace with all the people I live with, my death might cause great grief, but it will not cause guilt or anger.

When we are ready to die at any moment, we also are ready to live at any moment.

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A Grateful Death

When we think about death,   we often think about what will happen to us after we have died.   But it is more important to think about what will happen to those we leave behind.     The way we die has a deep and lasting effect on those who stay alive.   It will be easier for our family and friends to remember us with joy and peace if we have said a grateful good-bye than if we die with bitter and disillusioned hearts.

The greatest gift we can offer our families and friends is the gift of gratitude.   Gratitude sets them free to continue their lives without bitterness or self-recrimination.

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The Companionship of the Dead

As we grow older we have more and more people to remember, people who have died before us.   It is very important to remember those who have loved us and those we have loved.   Remembering them means letting their spirits inspire us in our daily lives.   They can become part of our spiritual communities and gently help us as we make decisions on our journeys.     Parents, spouses, children, and friends can become true spiritual companions after they have died.   Sometimes they can become even more intimate to us after death than when they were with us in life.

Remembering the dead is choosing their ongoing companionship.

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Choosing Life

God says, “I am offering you life or death, blessing or curse.   Choose life, then, so that you and your descendants may live”     (Deuteronomy 30:19).

“Choose life.”   That’s God’s call for us, and there is not a moment in which we do not have to make that choice.   Life and death are always before us.   In our imaginations, our thoughts, our words, our gestures, our actions … even in our nonactions.   This choice for life starts in a deep interior place.   Underneath very life-affirming behaviour I can still harbour death-thoughts and death-feelings.   The most important question is not “Do I kill?” but “Do I carry a blessing in my heart or a curse?”     The bullet that kills is only the final instrument of the hatred that began being nurtured in the heart long before the gun was picked up.

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A Choice Calling for Discipline

When we look critically at the many thoughts and feelings that fill our minds and hearts, we may come to the horrifying discovery that we often choose death instead of life, curse instead of blessing.   Jealousy, envy, anger, resentment, greed, lust, vindictiveness, revenge, hatred … they all float in that large reservoir of our inner life.   Often we take them for granted and allow them to be there and do their destructive work.

But God asks us to choose life and to choose blessing.   This choice requires an immense inner discipline.   It requires a great attentiveness to the death-forces within us and a great commitment to let the forces of life come to dominate our thoughts and feelings.   We cannot always do this alone; often we need a caring guide or a loving community to support us.     But it is important that we both make the inner effort and seek the support we need from others to help us choose life.

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Claiming Our God Given Selves

When we have been deeply hurt by another person, it is nearly impossible not to have hostile thoughts, feelings of anger or hatred, and even a desire to take revenge.   All of this often happens spontaneously, without much inner control.   We simply find ourselves brooding about what we are going to say or do to pay back the person who has hurt us.   To choose blessings instead of curses in such a situation asks for an enormous leap of faith.   It calls for a willingness to go beyond all our urges to get even and to choose a life-giving response.

Sometimes this seems impossible.   Still, whenever we move beyond our wounded selves and claim our God-given selves, we give life not just to ourselves but also to the ones who have offended us.

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Mastering Evil with Good

The apostle Paul writes to the Romans:   “Bless your persecutors; never curse them, bless them. … Never pay back evil with evil. … Never try to get revenge. … If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat; if thirsty, something to drink. … Do not be mastered by evil, but master evil with good”   (Romans 12:14-21).   These words cut to the heart of the spiritual life.   They make it clear what it means to choose life, not death, to choose blessings not curses.   But what is asked of us here goes against the grain of our human nature.     We will only be able to act according to Paul’s words by knowing with our whole beings that what we are asked to do for others is what God has done for us.

Waiting with Our Response

Choosing life instead of death demands an act of will that often contradicts our impulses.   Our impulses want to take revenge, while our wills want to offer forgiveness.   Our impulses push us to an immediate response:   When someone hits us in the face, we impulsively want to hit back.

How then can we let our wills dominate our impulses?     The key word is wait.   Whatever happens, we must put some space between the hostile act directed toward us and our response.   We must distance ourselves, take time to think, talk it over with friends, and wait until we are ready to respond in a life-giving way.   Impulsive responses allow evil to master us, something we always will regret.     But a well thought-through response will help us to “master evil with good”   (Romans 12.21).

Healing Letters

When you write a very angry letter to a friend who has hurt you deeply, don’t send it!   Let the letter sit on your table for a few days and read it over a number of times.   Then ask yourself:   “Will this letter bring life to me and my friend?   Will it bring healing, will it bring a blessing?”     You don’t have to ignore the fact that you are deeply hurt.   You don’t have to hide from your friend that you feel offended.   But you can respond in a way that makes healing and forgiveness possible and opens the door for new life.     Rewrite the letter if you think it does not bring life, and send it with a prayer for your friend.

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Choosing Words Wisely

Words are very important.   When we say to someone:   “You are an ugly, useless, despicable person,” we might have ruined the possibility for a relationship with that person for life.   Words can continue to do harm for many years.

It is so important to choose our words wisely.   When we are boiling with anger and eager to throw bitter words at our opponents, it is better to remain silent.   Words spoken in rage will make reconciliation very hard.     Choosing life and not death, blessings and not curses often starts by choosing to remain silent or choosing carefully the words that open the way to healing.

Speaking Words of Love

Often we remain silent when we need to speak.   Without words, it is hard to love well.   When we say to our parents, children, lovers, or friends:   “I love you very much” or “I care for you” or “I think of you often” or “You are my greatest gift,” we choose to give life.

It is not always easy to express our love directly in words.   But whenever we do, we discover we have offered a blessing that will be long remembered.   When a son can say to his father,   “Dad, I love you,” and when a mother can say to her daughter, “Child, I love you,” a whole new blessed place can be opened up, a space where it is good to dwell.   Indeed, words have the power to create life.

Blessing One Another

To bless means to say good things.   We have to bless one another constantly.   Parents need to bless their children, children their parents, husbands their wives, wives their husbands, friends their friends.   In our society, so full of curses, we must fill each place we enter with our blessings.   We forget so quickly that we are God’s beloved children and allow the many curses of our world to darken our hearts.   Therefore we have to be reminded of our belovedness and remind others of theirs.   Whether the blessing is given in words or with gestures, in a solemn or an informal way, our lives need to be blessed lives.

Choosing the Blessings

It is an ongoing temptation to think of ourselves as living under a curse.   The loss of a friend, an illness, an accident, a natural disaster, a war, or any failure can make us quickly think that we are no good and are being punished.     This temptation to think of our lives as full of curses is even greater when all the media present us day after day with stories about human misery.

Jesus came to bless us, not to curse us.   But we must choose to receive that blessing and hand it on to others.   Blessings and curses are always placed in front of us.   We are free to choose.   God says,   Choose the blessings!

Living in the End-Time

We are living in the end-time!   This does not mean that creation will soon come to its end, but it does mean that all the signs of the end of time that Jesus mentions are already with us:   wars and revolutions, conflicts between nations and between kingdoms, earthquakes, plagues, famines, and persecutions (see Luke 21:9-12).     Jesus describes the events of our world as announcements that this world is not our final dwelling place, but that the Son of Man will come to bring us our full freedom.     “When these things begin to take place,” Jesus says, “stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand” (Luke 21:28).   The terrible events surrounding us must be lived as ways to make us ready for our final liberation.

Opportunities to Witness

Jesus teaches us how to live in the present time.   He identifies our present time as the end-time, the time that offers us countless opportunities to testify for Jesus and his Kingdom.     The many disasters in our world, and all the tragedies that happen to people each day, can easily lead us to despair and convince us that we are the sad victims of circumstances.   But Jesus looks at these events in a radically different way.     He calls them opportunities to witness!

Jesus reminds us that we do not belong to this world.   We have been sent into the world to be living witnesses of God’s unconditional love, calling all people to look beyond the passing structures of our temporary existence to the eternal life promised to us.

Guarding Our Souls

The great danger of the turmoil of the end-time in which we live is losing our souls.   Losing our souls means losing touch with our center, our true call in life, our mission, our spiritual task.   Losing our soul means becoming so distracted by and preoccupied with all that is happening around us that we end up fragmented, confused, and erratic.   Jesus is very aware of that danger.   He says:   “Take care not to be deceived, because many will come using my name and saying, ‘I am the one’ and ‘The time is near at hand’   Refuse to join them” (Luke 21:8).

In the midst of anxious times there are many false prophets, promising all sorts of “salvations.”   It is important that we be faithful disciples of Jesus, never losing touch with our true spiritual selves.

Holding Our Ground

In a world so full of social and political turmoil and immense human suffering, people of faith will often be ridiculed because of their so-called ineffectiveness.   Many will say:   “If you believe that there is a loving God, let your God do something about this mess!”     Some will simply declare religion irrelevant, while others will consider it an obstacle to the creation of a new and better world.

Jesus often tells his followers that, as he was, they will be persecuted, arrested, tortured, and killed.   But he also tells us not to worry but to trust in him at all times.   “Make up your minds not to prepare your defence, because I myself shall give you an eloquence and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict”   (Luke 21:14-15).     Let’s not be afraid of skepticism and cynicism coming our way, but trust that God will give us the strength to hold our ground.