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Sweet Surrender

Sweet Honey

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


“How sweet to my palate are your promises, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Ps. 119:103)

Strange sometimes are the images we read in the prophets, and today’s is no exception: We have Ezekiel eating a scroll. And it is a scroll we might expect to be bitter, since its message is “lamentation and woe,” but the prophet finds it to be sweet as honey in his mouth.

And indeed, even though God’s message can be hard and challenging, there is something infinitely sweet about being handed the recipe for happiness.

Our culture is one of self-sufficiency and control: We seek to manage our destiny through the choices we make. And all the while, we are inevitably conscious that the greater part of our destiny lies outside our control. This tendency to want to wrangle every aspect of our lives, combined with the awareness that we cannot, is a recipe not for happiness, but for great anxiety. It is no wonder that there are so many mental health problems plaguing our society.

And by contrast, in today’s first reading we see God simply handing Ezekiel the answer key to life, as it were, in the form of His decrees. So too does Our Lord and His Church provide us the key to happiness in the form of a readily available relationship with Him, obtainable through the simplest of means: Prayer, the sacraments, and our simple, daily acts of love within our vocation.

So what is our problem? Why do we continually revert to the recipe for angst, instead of the straightforward recipe for happiness? Is it raw pride, the need to be masters?

Viewed more deeply, it is fear and lack of trust. As we see the world going to hell in a hand basket everywhere we look, we have trouble taking the Lord’s hand and trusting Him. Like Peter suddenly aware of the waves on the raging sea, we grab control and then flounder and flail.

Against this backdrop, it is clear why Jesus in today’s Gospel refers the apostles to little children when they ask who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. To conquer their fear, children do not grab control. They turn immediately to the person they trust. We intractable adults can learn to do the same in the school of prayer, where we slowly learn to let Jesus convince us that, despite the swirling seas and shipwrecked boats around us, He’s got this.

And sweet indeed is this conviction, when it reaches our hearts–“How sweet to my palate are your promises, sweeter than honey to my mouth!”

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Talk with Jesus about your deepest concerns and fears, the things you strive mightily to avoid with all your daily effort–and abandon them completely into His hands, entrust them to Him. Ask Him if you should truly place all your trust in Him, or if He wants you to keep some of the control yourself.

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Lavish Charity

Lavish

This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.


“Lavishly he gives to the poor.” (Ps. 112:9) “Lavish” is a word we usually associate with luxurious enjoyment, not giving. But the heart electrified with true supernatural charity, a virtue impossible to develop through practice but rather infused directly into the human soul from above as God’s greatest gift–such a heart gives lavishly.

Some virtues, such as honesty and temperance, are gained through practice and habit, like muscles built up through a daily workout. Supernatural charity, the queen of all the virtues, is more like a superpower than like a bulging muscle. It is more like Superman’s ability to fly than a strong man’s ability to lift. It is not proper to human nature; rather, it is itself a sharing in divine nature.

The soul that is infused with charity has a blessing and a cross. Such a soul is blessed with the heart of Christ: It senses the needs of those around it, large and small, and aches to fill those needs, more than it aches over its own needs. It invests the best of its powers of creativity, and passionate effort, into the happiness of others. But in this, its cross is compounded because it shares intimately in the crosses of others.

Thus, the soul infused with charity gives lavishly, gives to overflowing.

How do we “score” this gift from heaven, the gift of divine charity? It is simple, but not easy. We do so by dedicating time to get to know the Sacred Heart of Christ through meditation on the Gospel and conversation with Him, as well as through participation in the sacraments. It is not that charity comes “automatically” through these means. But, these are the means through which He ordinarily chooses to grant this gift, sometimes little by little, and sometimes in startlingly large doses.

Today is the feast of St. Lawrence, and the readings are chosen for him. This saint, a deacon in ancient Rome, a deacon among deacons, was known for giving lavishly to the poor. His heart was driven, impelled, by charity. And like the grain of wheat in today’s gospel, following in the footsteps of his Lord, he gave his life out of charity, out of love, as a martyr.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Talk to Christ about what drives His Heart. What did He feel when He healed people’s physical afflictions? Did He want His healing to go deeper? Did He feel passionate zeal for others’ happiness? What drove Him, dripping in blood and exhausted, to grasp a heavy cross and push it up the hill of Calvary?

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