God of Risks

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes; anyone who wants to harm them must be killed in this manner. They have authority to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire. 

When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days members of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb; and the inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to the inhabitants of the earth. 

But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and those who saw them were terrified. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here!’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watched them. 
(Revelation 11: 4-12)

Today let's ponder the words of the Book of Revelation. If we are to be the “Light of the World”, we must expect to be persecuted. Ours is a God of risks. Remember, the Author of Life Himself was crucified. However, death could not hold Him captive. Similarly, the witnesses of Revelation were raised up and taken into their Heavenly Homeland.

The two olive trees and two lampstands brings to mind how Jesus sent out the disciples “two by two and gave them authority to cast out evil spirits” (Mk. 6:7). Living a gospel life requires the help and support of a brother, of a sister. We cannot live the Gospel in isolation. We need one another. That being said, while we are called to be one in Christ, we are not called to look nor to act identically. The strength of the Church is in its diversity of gifts. The two witnesses testified to the paschal victory of Christ, sealing their testimony with their deaths.

If we listen to Pope Francis, we hear him saying that Christians are called to bear witness to the work of God in the world. As witnesses of Christ, we are raised up to speak against the neglect of human dignity and to defend the truth. As witnesses of Christ we are commissioned to speak against indifference to the poor and abuse of the earth, our common Mother. As witnesses of Christ, we are challenged to be burning and shining lights in a world that is wrapped in darkness. In Christ’s faithful witnesses is found the manifestation of God’s love and mercy for the world. God’s witnesses must not grow weary of giving service nor should they flee suffering. In their weakness, they manifest God’s strength. In their apparent defeat, they testify to God’s ultimate victory.

God has not given us the spirit of timidity or fear. Rather, He has poured into our hearts the Spirit of power, courage and endurance so as to meet the challenges that confront us. With the help of the Spirit we will be able to bear afflictions so as to proclaim the Glory of Grace. It is in Him that we live, and move and have our being. When He comes to reveal Himself as the One Who conquered death, may He bring us all together into everlasting life.

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO

Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr

St. Lawrence was put to death simply because he was a deacon.

According to tradition, Lawrence had been assisting Pope Sixtus at the altar when both were arrested. After Sixtus was beheaded, Lawrence was given three day to collect and hand over the treasure of the church. During this time, he sold all the vessels of the church and gave the proceeds to the poor of Rome. According to the traditional accounts, Lawrence led a procession of poor, crippled, blind and suffering people into the emperor’s present and boldly declared: “These are the true treasures of the Church.”

It is shocking at times to think some people are more concerned about the sacred vessels of the altar than about human beings who are sacred to God.

Viewed in the context of St. Lawrence, we can say that a church that has a large endowment and a beautifully appointed sanctuary cannot consider itself rich as long as there are poor and destitute people sitting outside its door unattended to.

Money bestowed in charity is the seed sown with a prodigal hand. Help should be given freely and cheerfully, not grudgingly.

If we truly believed that God has a homeland prepared for us, we would waste less on ourselves and sow more in hope of a bountiful harvest. God is able to make grace abound in and around us. He can and does provide us with our daily bread, giving us enough to supply for the needs of others. We must never forget the unspoken answer to Cain’s question. We are our brother’s keeper!

The great desire of our souls should be to see Jesus in the poor and to recognize Him in the Breaking of the Bread. As we are fed by the Living Bread, we should pledge ourselves to become bread to feed the world.

A loaf of bread cannot be made unless the wheat grain is sown into the earth where it casts off its outer shell and releases the abundant life it contains. The salvation of the world depends upon the self-emptying of the wheat grain.

In the church, everything is oriented and consummated by values that begin with charity and with realities that are destined to remain, even after this world passes away. Like Saint Lawrence, may we desire to be a sacrifice worthy of the Master so as to bring about the transformation of the world.

--Fr. Jerome Machar, OSCO

Saint Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs of Japan, and Pope Francis' response to 12 year old's question about suffering

The third-century writer, Tertullian wrote: “The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians.” The feast of Saint Paul Miki and Companions reminds us that the Gospel needs to be proclaimed even in the face of persecution. Believers need to be will to present themselves to God as whole-burnt sacrifices, a sweet fragrance before the divine majesty. The city that had been the target of the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945 was also the place where Paul Miki and his companions were crucified. As they hung upon their crosses, the Martyrs sang hymns of praise to God. They offered themselves for the glory of God and allowed their lives to be crushed out, just as the sacred elements placed upon the altar are made by the crushing of grapes and the grinding of wheat. 

Saint Paul Miki and Companions

Suspended between heaven and earth, Paul Miki preached the gospel of Jesus Christ. “The sentence of judgment says these men came to Japan from the Philippines, but I did not come from any other country. I am a true Japanese. The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ. I certainly did teach the doctrine of Christ. I thank God it is for this reason I die. I believe that I am telling only the truth before I die. I know you believe me and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you to become happy. I obey Christ. After Christ’s example I forgive my persecutors. I do not hate them. I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.” 

The Disciples of Christ must be willing to follow the Master, walking in His footsteps and laying down their lives for the sake of the Kingdom. By emptying Himself, Jesus purchased for Himself a peculiar people of  priests for His Father. They were to be zealous in performing good works and supportive of one another in the bonds of love. When love is genuine, it is active and life-giving. Love shows itself in praying with and for one another. Whatever the disciple is as to this life, he considers the favor and service of God as the one thing needful. This he desires, prays for and seeks after, and in it he rejoices even when subjected to cruel torture. 

Pope Francis embracing a 12 year old girl in Manila. She had asked why so many bad things happen to others, especially the children, and could not get her words out until she broke down, weeping. The Pope embraced her and comforted her in silence.

The crucifixion of the martyrs and the nuclear holocaust of Nagasaki have led many to wonder why God allowed these things to happen. Of course, the same "why" can be asked regarding any difficult circumstance that we see as being contrary to God's loving providence. This question found its way into the deepest recesses of our hearts when Pope Francis embraced a 12 year old girl in Manila. Having traveled through the dark valley they were in, he was sympathetic to her question and simply embraced her in silence.   While the question has no answer, it does evoke a response of compassion. "Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey. To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence, a history of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light." ("Lumen Fidei," June 29, 2013). 

 

Let us join in mind and heart with all who suffer as we gather around the Table of the Lord.

 

--Father Jerome Machar, OSCO 

Pope Francis' response to the child's question:

Background information:

Glyzelle Palomar, a one-time homeless child taken in by a church charity, made her emotional plea during ceremonies at a Catholic university in Manila, ahead of a mass by the pope to millions of faithful.

"Many children are abandoned by their parents. Many children get involved in drugs and prostitution," Palomar told the pope as she stood on stage alongside a 14-year-old boy who also used to be homeless.

"Why does God allow these things to happen to us? The children are not guilty of anything."
Palomar broke down and wept profusely, prompting the 78-year-old pontiff with a man-of-the-people reputation to take her into his arms and hug her for a few seconds.

The Pope's reply:

To Jun and Leandro Santos II and to Rikki, thank you very much. There’s only a very small representation of girls among you. Too little. Women have much to tell us in today’s society. Sometimes we are too “machistas” and we don’t allow enough space to women. But women can see things from a different angle to us, with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions we men are unable to understand. Look out for this fact: she is the only one who has put a question for which there is no answer. She couldn’t put it into words but expressed it with tears. So when the next pope comes to Manila, please let there be more girls.

I thank you Jun for talking about your experience so bravely. As I said, the heart of your question has no reply. Only when we too can cry about the things you said can we come close to answering that question. Why do children suffer so much? Why do children suffer? When the heart is able to ask itself and weep, then we can understand something. There is a worldly compassion which is useless. You expressed something like this. It’s a compassion that makes us put our hands in our pockets and give something to the poor. But if Christ had had that kind of compassion he would have greeted a couple of people, given them something, and walked on. But it was only when he was able to cry that he understood something of our lives. Dear young boys and girls, today’s world doesn’t know how to cry. The emarginated people, those left to one side, are crying. Those who are discarded are crying. But we don’t understand much about these people in need. Certain realities of life we only see through eyes cleansed by our tears. I invite each one here to ask yourself: have I learned how to weep? Have I learned how to weep for the emarginated or for a street child who has a drug problem or for an abused child? Unfortunately there are those who cry because they want something else.
This is the first thing I want to say: let us learn how to weep as she has shown us today and let us not forget this lesson. The great question of why so many children suffer, she did this in tears. The response that we can make today is: let us really learn how to weep.

In the Gospel, Jesus cried for his dead friend, he cried in his heart for the family who lost its child, for the poor widow who had to bury her son. He was moved to tears and compassion when he saw the crowds without a pastor. If you don’t learn how to cry, you cannot be a good Christian. This is a challenge. When they posed this question to us, why children suffer, why this or that tragedy occurs in life – our response must be either silence or a word that is born of our tears. Be courageous, don’t be afraid to cry.

Edith Stein: A Vocation to Intercede for Everyone

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
   and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
   and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
   and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
   strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack
   and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
   therefore judgement comes forth perverted. (Habakkuk 1: 1-4)

Saint Teresa Benedicta a Cruce (Edith Stein)

             

On August 9, we celebrate the memorial of a great woman, Edith Stein, who died in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942. She was born into an observant Jewish family on Yom Kippur, 1891. As a teenager, she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith and became an atheist. In the course of her studies, she met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives intrigued her. She was converted to Catholicism as a result of reading the writings of Theresa of Avila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” Eventually, she entered Carmel, taking the name: Teresa Benedicta a Cruce (Theresa Blessed by the Cross) as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering. “I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take it upon themselves on everybody's behalf.” She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear. In 1939 she wrote: “I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.” 

           Her martyrdom and the horror of the Holocaust can serve as a backdrop for our consideration of a reading from the prophet Habakkuk. No matter how bad things get, God is still the Holy One and Master of the Universe. The prophet calls to mind God’s fidelity to the covenant He made with His people. This sure hope is echoed in the words of Edith Stein: “Things were in God’s plan which I had not planned at all.  I am coming to the living faith and conviction that — from God’s point of view — there is not chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail has been mapped out in God’s divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God’s all-seeing eyes.” 

            The Beloved Son of God has come into the world. The Living Word has become flesh, taking to Himself all our pain and suffering. The scars He bears in His glorified body are the pledge of our salvation and a promise of our adoption as Children of the Kingdom. Edith Stein's entry into the Carmelite Order was not escapism. "Those who join the Carmelite Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone." In particular, she interceded to God for her people: "I keep thinking of Queen Esther who was taken away from her people precisely because God wanted her to plead with the king on behalf of her nation. I am a very poor and powerless little Esther, but the King who has chosen me is infinitely great and merciful. This is great comfort." (31 October 1938) I will close these reflections with a prayer she wrote: "O my God, fill my soul with holy joy, courage and strength to serve You. Enkindle Your love in me and then walk with me along the next stretch of road before me. I do not see very far ahead, but when I have arrived where the horizon now closes down, a new prospect will prospect will open before me, and I shall meet it with peace.” 

--Fr. Jerome Machar, OSCO