This is a reflection on the Mass readings of the day.
The Bible is chock full of paradoxes. Whoever loses his life will find it. The poor in spirit will inherit the earth. God chooses the weak to shame the strong. And as we see in today’s first reading, one must become a fool so as to become wise.
It is true that we must pass through these many paradoxes to attain the glorious destiny for which God has created us. But we must remember that the paradox only goes so far. The glory to which God calls us is real glory, the real and eternal glory, not some paradoxical version of glory. The eternal joy to which He calls us, which begins in a partial but exciting way here on earth, is not just real joy–it is an exalted joy that fills and even extends our human capacity for joy. That joy is free of any paradox.
The great many paradoxes in our faith trace back not so much to some sort of ironic sense of humor in our God, in our Creator, as they do to the often ignored but massive impact of the sin of our first parents on us, on all of us who have followed. The paradox ultimately lies in this: That Christ has taken the very worst of the consequences of sin–suffering and death–and turned them into the keystone of our salvation.
But again, because the paradox traces back to sin, the paradox itself ultimately dies with our mortal flesh; it is passing. As such, there is no need to apply it as a lens to every aspect of our human and spiritual lives.
It is a mistake, for example, to think that the virtuous version of ourselves will be a paradoxical complete reversal of our temperaments. If I am talented in leadership, virtue for me does not necessarily mean complete abdication of leadership. If I tend toward study and research, this does not necessarily mean that the virtuous version of me is someone who shuns the work of the intellect and seeks constant socialization and external interaction.
Rather, we see in the lives of the saints how holiness is the exaltation of our nature, with all its specificity and individuality, based on its purification, not from that specificity, but from sin. God doesn’t aim to take our individuality and temper it to the point that it is neutered of all that makes us special. Rather, He loves the particular aspects of what each of us is and longs to exalt that to become, well, itself–but with an injection of holiness, with an injection of His divinity.
This is what we see in today’s dramatic Gospel. Jesus miraculously culminates Peter’s fishing success. He doesn’t bring from Peter a clay vessel, purple goods, or the sort of tent St. Paul would have made with his trade. He culminates his success as a fisherman, with real, flesh-and-blood fish. He loves Peter the fisherman. He never has any intention to take Peter and turn him into someone completely different.
Still, that culmination doesn’t stop with Peter’s miraculous catch of fish, or fishing success in general. Rather, Jesus makes Peter a fisher of men–He takes what Peter is and exalts it beyond anything the lowly Galilean fisherman could ever have dreamed of.
Today’s saint of the day is St. Gregory the Great. Biographies of this saint hasten to tell us what St. Gregory was not. He was no St. Thomas Aquinas, no brilliant theologian. In fact, in the various areas where he excelled as an expert–monasticism, missionary work–St. Gregory added very little if anything new.
But what St. Gregory was, He was to the full: He was a leader. He gathered the Church with a strong voice into unity in its understanding of monasticism, missionary work, the Papacy, and many other things. Gregory as Gregory was Great.
And you: God has an image of you in your greatness. In the channeling of all your gifts and talents to the service of others and of His Church. He doesn’t want you to be “that other person” whom you admire because they have tendencies and talents that you don’t have. He wants to exalt you with all your individuality so far above your hopes and dreams as Peter’s role as fisher of men was exalted above his limited trade of netting tilapia on the Sea of Galilee.
Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to send His Holy Spirit to help you know yourself, not for growth in vanity, but for growth in gratitude. Thank Him not for any superiority you have, but for your individuality and for His gift of creating you with infinite love for that particular individuality that you are. And ask Him to show you the path to the exaltation that He wants for your special individuality, which is your own particular path of service to others.
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