Tag: <span>Exaltation</span>

March 5, 2021February 17, 2021

The Christian Cycle

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

Of the many servants of God throughout history represented by the servants who came to the vineyard in Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel, Joseph was certainly one.

The pattern Jesus describes holds with Joseph. The vineyard tenants beat one servant, stoned another…In the case of Joseph, his own brothers cast him into a pit and then sold him into slavery.

And the son killed by the tenants in the gospel passage, of course, represents Jesus Himself.

But note the way the gospel passage ends. Jesus quotes Psalm 118:

    The stone that the builders rejected
       has become the cornerstone;
   by the Lord has this been done,
       and it is wonderful in our eyes.

And we know, of course, that this psalm perfectly prophesies Jesus’ own destiny. Though rejected and killed by His enemies, Jesus is to become the cornerstone of history itself.

But wait! There’s more. Let’s look back at Joseph’s life as well, in the light of Jesus’ own destiny. We see that for Joseph, things work out similarly, in a sense. After being sold into slavery, Joseph ultimately becomes a ruler in Egypt, with decision-making authority over those same brothers who exiled him. He is even restored to his father, whose particular love for him was the cause of his brothers’ envy and resentment in the first place.

Rejected by his family, Joseph becomes the cornerstone of his family.

Now, we may think of Joseph as a foreshadowing of Jesus, because he came before Him, and we would of course be right. But consider the inverse as well. Jesus sheds light on Joseph–He explains him.

So it may be said that He sheds light on our lives too, and explains them. For every Christian, this reality, the stone rejected by the builders rising to become the cornerstone, is repeated as well. Our destiny, even on this earth, like Joseph and like Jesus Himself, is not to descend into a deeper and deeper pit of humiliation and ignominy. It is to descend in self-sacrifice out of love for our brothers and sisters, and then to see ourselves raised up by God Himself, exalted–and endowed with the very power of salvation itself. Maybe once, maybe multiple times, maybe in different ways. But this is the Christian cycle.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to infuse holy excitement and enthusiasm into your heart for your Christian mission, replacing any fatalism or hint of despair. Ask Him to help you to see your life as He sees it; indeed, as He saw His own. Tell Him you entrust your destiny wholly into His care.

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December 22, 2020December 17, 2020

Go Down to Go Up

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

A fundamental dynamic of salvation history, that is, a dynamic of God’s interaction with the human person after the fall, emerges as a theme in all the readings today. It is the dynamic of the human person experiencing humility and humiliation as a condition of reaching the destiny of high exaltation to which God calls every person redeemed by His son. The experience of the dynamic humiliation-exaltation yields a third reality, which is profound gratitude on the part of the redeemed.

In the first reading, Hannah experiences for a long period the humiliation of sterility. God answers her pleas for a child, and in gratitude she consecrates the boy to God, quite literally making a gift of him at the temple.

Hannah prefigures the reality of the Blessed Virgin Mary expressed so beautifully in the today’s gospel. Mary needed no humiliation event to come into intimate contact with her own lowliness. She was ever-conscious of her smallness before God. It is not the suffering of humiliation that pleases God as He instructs us; He merely wants us to be fully aware of our littleness, as the key to understanding our dependency on Him for our happiness and seeking a relationship with Him above all else. Mary had this awareness without the need for any bitter lesson.

As such, Mary’s gratitude is arguably even more pure than that of someone like Hannah, who passed through the experience of bitter humiliation; Mary had made perfect peace with her littleness from early on, which made God’s exaltation of her that much more of an unexpected surprise.

To the degree that we come into intimate contact with our smallness before God, and our need for a close union with Him for our happiness, to that degree the beauty of Mary’s Magnificat resonates with us.

As is often the case, today’s psalm sums up the lesson well for us:

The well-fed hire themselves out for bread,
while the hungry batten on spoil.
The barren wife bears seven sons,
while the mother of many languishes.

As we prepare for Christmas in the final days, we foresee the dynamic from today’s readings play out with the extreme of beauty in the mystery of the Incarnation. It is Jesus, God Himself, who enters into the dynamic of humiliation directly, by taking on flesh and ultimately suffering the epitome of degradation at the hands of sinners with His Passion and death. And the beauty of it is, He does so not for the benefit of any personal exaltation, but that we may come to be exalted. He takes on the dynamic of humiliation for us.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Speak with Our Lady, in this time before Christmas. Ask her to help you appreciate the dynamic of humiliation and to open your heart to it. Ask her to look after you as your Mother during the necessary period of humiliation that this life involves, if we are to be exalted with her Son–so that it does not embitter your heart against God, but leads to a profound awareness of your need for Him.

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November 3, 2020October 17, 2020

The Blood of God

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

The dynamic of Christ’s saving act is awesome, filled with drama, and merits deep meditation and consideration. It is beautiful that we can undertake this reflection in the presence of, and in dialogue with, the very Person who is Protagonist of the act.

Prior to this act, there is a dynamic within the Blessed Trinity of self-outpouring and self-giving that feeds an eternal union, union which is the profound fulfillment of each of the three Persons.

It is said that to God, who is infinite, nothing can ever be added, and this is true.

Yet, upon the incarnation of God, a new ability was in a sense added: Added to the divine self-outpouring was the ability to suffer in that act of self-outpouring.

In one of the most beautiful readings in Scripture, today’s first reading, St. Paul poetically tells us that as a result of this, “God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”

But Jesus didn’t take on this new ability, suffering, for His own exaltation. He took it on for ours. By the power of His saving act, He gives us this same dynamic: By pouring out our lives as He did in obedience to God for others, we attain that same eternal exaltation–in our human flesh, like Jesus–of which St. Paul speaks.

It is a breathless dynamic–one that takes us leagues outside our comfort zone. It is because of the great challenge that this dynamic involves for us that, according to Jesus in the Gospel, many souls decline from it. They find other things to do, other things to focus on. Without great fanfare, they decline the invitation of Jesus.

Contemplation of this reality should cause us sorrow and inspire us to fervent prayer and sacrifice for others, that God will give them absurd, gratuitous amounts of grace and stimulus to reconsider and accept His invitation, from which alone happiness comes.

But also, in a way, it should cause us excitement. The destiny to which God calls us and in fact brings us through Christ’s saving dynamic is not run-of-the-mill. It is a glorious one, one that merits God taking on the new ability to suffer, one that merits the very blood of God Himself.

Ideas for conversation with Jesus: Tell Jesus that you want to hear and follow His call in its fullness. That you don’t want to cheapen it in any way by cutting corners, or by giving in to mediocrity. Ask Him for the courage and strength to see your calling through to its utter fulfillment.

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