spirituality

The “I am” Within

Homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Deacon Douglas McManaman

I know a retired pathologist who, in her retirement, collects and sells antiques. One of her colleagues in medicine was a very well known and prestigious neurologist who won many awards of distinction. But he died suddenly of a heart attack, and not too long afterwards, in her favorite Thrift store, she discovered a box full of cheap lucite Doctor of the Year awards and trophies with this doctor’s name engraved on them. She thought to herself: “This widow sure didn’t waste any time unloading this stuff.” 

This is a great image of the vanity of so much of what many people think is important in life. Of course, what was important and lasting in the life of this neurologist is the service to the patients he actually helped, not the awards he received. Hopefully he understood that, and hopefully this is what he lived for, namely the good of others–because human persons are destined to live forever, while lucite awards and trophies eventually end up in a box collecting dust in a thrift store or the dump. 

Everything in this world drifts into the past, and the past is dead. But the present is real; it is alive and open to the unknown future. It is moving, and the ultimate purpose of this life is eternal union within the very heart of the Trinity, who dwells within us in the state of grace. And so this life is supposed to be a preparation for this final union, and it is this purpose that gives ultimate meaning to the present. 

But when a person lives merely for the pleasures of this present world and thinks nothing of the ultimate end, which is eternal union with God and with the communion of saints, the only thing that gives his life any personal meaning is the past he’s lived, a past that is always dead. I very often feel this when I have to preside over funerals and read obituaries in preparation for those funerals, because very often the obituaries make no reference to God, but only to what is past, dead, and gone, such as fleeting enjoyments, traveling, fine cuisine, and sunsets on the beach, etc. Unless what was done in the past has an eternal value–such as a genuine commitment to the good of others in some way, acts of heroic charity, justice, fortitude, or work that has left something for future generations, etc., it is ultimately without enduring meaning. Preparation for what is eternal, living with an eye to eternity, and not simply for those aspects of the present that are destined to drift into the dead past, is what gives this present life an everlasting meaning.

This parable of the Ten Bridesmaids addresses those who were invited to the great feast but did not prepare, that is, did not think ahead. Oil symbolizes the source of light, which is the theological virtue of faith that works through love. The key line in this parable are the words of the Bridegroom: “I do not know you”. For the Jews, knowledge involves union, that is, experience. For the Lord to say to me “I do not know you” means that “I have never experienced any kind of union with you”. In other words, I don’t know the Lord, because I’ve never discovered him, and I’ve never discovered him, because I’ve never really discovered myself. All I know is a false self, not my true self. The false self is made up of characteristics, descriptions, identities that are not lasting but transitory, such as teacher, or husband, wife, brilliant professor, researcher, award winning surgeon, or famous actor, celebrity, wealthy, strong, independent, and so on. These are not permanent, for the scholar can suffer a serious brain injury as a result of a vehicle accident, the teacher will eventually retire, marriage is until “death do us part” and the husband or the wife will eventually die before the other, a wealthy person may lose everything; and celebrities for one generation are practically unknown to another generation. 

That is precisely why some people have a fear of retirement. One of my students back in 2017 asked me if I was afraid to retire. I told her I wasn’t sure. I believe I was slightly apprehensive; after 30 years in the classroom, one can be very attached to that identity, and to be stripped of it over night can be frightening and even traumatic for some. Which is why the spiritual life is so important, because the goal of the spiritual life is to gradually peel away the many descriptive layers that constitute this false and transitory self, which are like layers of clothing. The goal is to get to the true self, the naked self that was you and me when we were born, which is why Christ said: unless you change and become as little children, you will never enter the kingdom of God. My true identity is not “teacher”, much less Deacon–that would mean that I only became my true self 18 years ago, which is absurd. But when we begin to remove these layers, which the aging process begins for us, to help us along, we discover something that was there from the beginning, something that does not change, which is the naked awareness that “I am”. It has no definable and limited identity. When I become acutely aware of this permanent “I” at the core of my being, I discover with me another “I” who was there from the very beginning, the one who revealed his name to Moses on Mount Sinai: I AM WHO I AM (Ex 3, 14). 

My deepest identity is that I come from Him, that I exist in His image, which is “I AM”, and that I did not accomplish anything to earn my existence. I am simply aware that “I am” – which was on loan to every moment of time that I lived – and this is what Jesus revealed himself to be when he was debating the religious leaders in the Temple courts: “Before Abraham was, I AM” (Jn 8, 58), which the Hebrew Scriptures translate as Yahweh – the very name “Jesus” means “Yahweh is salvation”.

We discover God when, in silence, we peel off these false layers that have accrued to us over the years and stand naked and undefined before Him. Then we begin to know ourselves, and we begin to know him. This person might be a faster runner than that person, but how long will that last? Not long at all. In my true naked identity, as an “I” brought into being by God, I am no better than anyone. 

And just as God is Light and Love Itself, who pours Himself out freely and gratuitously, each one of us is called to be a radiant outpouring of light and love to others, without any ulterior motives. I must never look upon another as an “object”, while I am a subjective “I”. Rather, I must see that person as a subject and love must move me towards that person’s very subjectivity, so that I enter that person and see that person as me. Only then do we love our neighbor as ourselves. They must become other selves, not objects. 

It is possible to go through our entire lives without ever discovering who we really are, because we refuse to descend into the “universe within”, through contemplative prayer, and so we cling to our past accomplishments and experiences, and we continue to pile up more and more, which in the end will have less reality than the smoke of a crematorium. But the past is dead, and Christ told us to let the dead bury the dead (Mt 8, 22). Christ gives us the grace to look for him and find him in the deepest regions of the soul, and when we are united to him there, we see his image everywhere in the world, especially in the persons he has created in his image and likeness. He dwells in them, and so if I know him, then I know them. And if they know him, then they know me. Only at that point will a world of justice and peace between all peoples become a reality. Without that spirituality of self-discovery, however, the pattern of domination, competition, “us and them”, superiority and inferiority, etc., will simply continue on a personal and institutional and national level, along with the fear, resentment and unforgiveness it generates.

 

First Things First

Homily for The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Deacon Douglas McManaman

In the first Reading, we find ourselves back in the desert. Moses calls attention to the experience of the Israelites: “Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert, so as to test you by affliction…” (Deut 8, 2). It was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who led them out into and through the desert: a pillar of fire by night, a pillar of cloud by day. And they had to experience the hunger and thirst of living in the desert wilderness because they had to learn to depend on God. And this is a hard lesson to learn. But the Lord leads all of us, at certain points in our lives, out into the desert wilderness in order that we may learn to depend on Him, to allow him to lead.

Many of us, however, have a very real fear that “if I give my finger to God, he’s going to take my whole hand”. And so, we hold back, unwilling to surrender our entire selves. For many of us it takes a lifetime to learn to give God not just our hand, but our entire body. In the meantime, He does allow us to see what happens when we have Him take a back seat while we take the lead. Imagine if the Israelites were to lead themselves out of Egypt and through the desert. Would they have made it to the land of promise, the land of Canaan? No, they would not have. God has to lead because of three important factors: 1) He is all powerful, which means he can do whatever he wants. Nothing limits God; 2) He’s all knowing, so He knows what is best for us and what conditions need to be in place for us to achieve that end; and 3) He wills the best for us, which is what it means to say that God is Love. He wills our greatest good and happiness, and He knows better than we do what constitutes our greatest happiness and precisely how to bring it about, and He has the power to bring it about, but not without our cooperation. He won’t force himself upon us; for love is not love unless it is freely given, and friendship is a two-way street. He offers us His friendship and waits for our response. And God is patient; He will wait our entire lives if He has to.

So, we have to allow Him to lead, but we are creatures of habit, and we are afraid. That is why He allows us to taste the lifelessness and desolation of the wilderness, which is life as it eventually becomes when we choose to take charge. But we cannot lead, because we are not all knowing, and we are profoundly limited and vulnerable, for all of us are just one freak accident from paralysis and becoming completely dependent upon the care of others or from ending up on the street. But for some strange reason, that isn’t obvious to most people. They seem to believe that such things couldn’t happen to them.

The manna with which God fed Israel in the desert is of course a foreshadowing of the Eucharist. The message is simple: If we don’t eat, we die. I remember watching the 2004 film Supersize Me. The director of this film decides to subsist on food from the McDonald’s menu for an entire month. Soon his energy level drops and he begins to experience horrible side effects. I don’t mean to put down McDonald’s–I think they have the best coffee and fast food is very convenient at times. But notice what happens when he goes from a healthy diet to a steady diet of food that is meant only to have occasionally.

For me, the parallel is obvious. We cannot feed sporadically on the Bread of Life. The Eucharist has to be our staple. It is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ, in the act of sacrificing himself to God the Father. We are fed on Christ himself. He is our food. If we neglect that food and instead choose to feed on other things in this world that are good, just not Christ, like entertainment, travel, trips to exotic places, fine cuisine, etc., gradually our spiritual energy level plummets. These things cannot sustain us. We were created for the Bread of Life, Christ himself. Without a steady diet of the Eucharist, we slowly die.

The spiritual life must be first; God must be first; Christ must be first; the Bread of Life must be first. God will take care of the rest. He said it himself: “Don’t worry about what you are to eat and what you are to drink and what you are to wear; seek first the kingdom of God and all these other things will be provided” (Mt 6, 33).

God will lead us through turbulent waters and through the heat of the desert, towards the land of promise. But we must make an act of the will, a commitment to stay the course despite how we feel on certain days, an act of the will to allow him to lead in our married lives, and in our work, so that our work becomes his work, no matter what that is, whether that’s cleaning toilets, scrubbing floors or high finance. It all has dignity because it is work and work is holy.

When we consume the Eucharist, we become what we eat. We become Christ. What this means is that when we leave the parish Church and enter back into our homes and into the world of work, we bring Christ into the home and into the world. A home with Christ in it is a peaceful home, and it is through us that Christ is in the world. And if it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me (Gal 2, 20), then the way others relate to me and you is the way they relate to Christ, and that becomes their salvation, no matter what religion they are (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, or no religion at all). In relating to you, who have become Christ in consuming his body and blood, they relate to Christ without necessarily being aware of it. And if they love you, they love Christ without even knowing it.

 

 

Poor in Spirit and Pure in Heart

Poor in Spirit @Lifeissues.net

Deacon Douglas McManaman

As we all know, Jesus commanded us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Mk 12, 31). That’s not easy to do, because we tend to love ourselves a great deal more than our neighbor. In fact, if we require some visible evidence of the extent of our self-love, just take a look at the property values of the homes of some of the richest celebrities. I know of one, whom I won’t mention by name, who has a 165-million-dollar estate. But that’s not all. He also has three others in Florida, all three totaling 230 million. He has another property in Hawaii at 78 million, another in Washington for 23 million, and a collection of apartments in New York City for 80 million. That’s a total of 576 million in total properties. 

Now, I’m not about to whine about people having more than they need or the sin of greed, etc., and I don’t mean to suggest that this person neglects giving to charity. My point is that we can see that loving another person, as we love ourselves, is rather difficult, because the ratio between our self-love and our love of neighbor is far greater than we realize. The wealth that I call attention to is merely a visible image of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to provide himself with everything that corresponds to the degree of that self-love. Is it possible that my real estate portfolio could look something like that, if billions of dollars were to suddenly fall on my lap? Of course it is possible, but I hope not, and if not, it will only be by the grace of God. But whenever we see this kind of luxury, it is really a manifestation of what happens when all the conditions are in place that permit a person to look after himself in a way that measures up to the degree of his own self-love. We want the best for ourselves and we probably don’t realize just how great that love is because of our circumstances. These celebrities help us get a glimpse of it. 

And it is a strange phenomenon that the more wealth a person acquires, the greater is his desire for more. One would think that greater wealth would be accompanied by a corresponding decrease in desire, that one is gradually reaching the point at which one no longer feels the need for more wealth–after all, I have everything I need and more. But it seems the opposite happens; the more wealth is acquired, the desire for more continues to increase. 

The first beatitude in today’s gospel is the most fundamental: “Blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is theirs”. Those who are poor know it. They feel their poverty, their lack of life’s basic necessities; they struggle to make ends meet. Those who are poor in spirit, however, are poor not necessarily in material things, but “in spirit”, and they too know it, they are aware of their spiritual destitution, that is, aware of their utter need for God. The poor in spirit know that independence and control are basically illusions. We are, all of us, one freak accident away from ending up in a hospital bed, dependent upon the care of others, or worse, on the streets with a serious mental incapacity to take care of ourselves. 

A person poor in spirit is open to God, desires God, will go in search of God–and of course, anyone who seeks God finds him. In fact, anyone who is actively seeking God has already been found by God. The difficulty is getting to that place where one actually begins to feel one’s own radical need for God. That is much rarer than we tend to think. Most of us, it seems, have to “hit rock bottom” before it begins to dawn on us that we really do need God. I believe this is one reason God allows suffering in our lives.

And so, poverty of spirit, the experience of a deep interior need for God, is really the greatest gift that a person can receive, for it is in fact the gift of faith, because faith begins with precisely that openness to God and readiness to surrender to him. And the blessing that goes with poverty of spirit is the kingdom of God, which Jesus compares to a treasure hidden in a field that someone finds and who goes off and sells everything he owns in order to buy that field. In other words, having the kingdom of God, living within it, having Christ reign over one’s life, is far more valuable than a collection of properties that add up to about 600 million dollars. To have found that interior treasure is to have become aware of that, which is the fruit of true poverty of spirit. 

The ones whom I have met in my life as a Deacon who are truly poor in spirit have been those who suffer from mental illness, in particular clinical depression. In my experience, these have had the deepest sense of their utter need for God. It was precisely the experience of their darkness that made them call out to God. It seems counterintuitive to imply that clinical depression can be one of God’s greatest gifts, but there is some truth to this. Friendships are typically based on common qualities and interests, which is why mental sufferers really do have something in common with Christ, namely, their life of suffering, a life that amounts to accompanying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, keeping him company in the mental anguish he experienced on Holy Thursday night. That vocation imparts a much greater dignity and identity than does owning a multi-million-dollar estate and a private jet. As they say, we bring none of our wealth with us to the grave, only what we have in our souls, that is, our spiritual and moral identity. And the more like Christ that identity is, the more beautiful it is, and that is a beauty we will possess for eternity. 

The other beatitude that I would like to address is purity of heart, because according to the Desert Fathers and Mothers, that is the very purpose of the spiritual life. The pure in heart shall see God. “Pure” (katharoi) means clean or unmixed (as in pure maple syrup, which is unmixed with any artificial additives). A pure heart is one that loves God with an undivided love, a love not mixed with a competing love of self. 

Purity in heart involves a loss of a sense of “I”. In many ways, it is a return to the innocence of childhood, the innocence of the first parents in the Garden. When we compare ourselves to others, perhaps feeling a kind of satisfaction in knowing we are better than another in some way, there is a definite felt sense of “I”. But consider the times when you are watching a great film; you lose all sense of a “self” watching the movie. It’s as if you and the movie are one. That’s the place we need to get to in the spiritual life, if we are to be pure in heart. At that point, everything is seen in God and God is seen in everything; everything is loved in God, and God is loved in everything, and that sense of “I” disappears, at least for the most part.

The only regret we will have at the end of our lives is that we did not achieve this level of purity. In other words, we loved ourselves too much and did not love others enough. The real joy in human existence, however, is loving others as another self. St. Teresa of Calcutta often employed the expression “the joy of loving”. Think of the self as a kind of prison cell. The more we love others as we love ourselves, the more we go outside of ourselves, outside of the prison walls. That’s true freedom, and the result is that we bring so much more light and life to others who are living in darkness.