Tag: <span>Purification</span>

March 16, 2021February 26, 2021

Cleansing Water

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

Imagine being ill for thirty-eight years, like the man in today’s gospel.

He was at the pool called Bethesda, trying to get in when the water was stirred up, in a vague hope of receiving healing. But this was ordinary water, without healing powers.

Little did he know that Jesus had come by for him–Jesus, the source of living water (cf. Jn. 4:10).

The water that Jesus brings, which in a single moment fully cured the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years, is that which is represented by the pure, fresh river in today’s first reading. This living water, which purifies and cleanses the brackish water with which it comes into contact, is the grace of God.

And what is that grace? It is the Holy Spirit Himself, but seen specifically through the prism of the impact that He has on our bodies and especially our spirits.

He stands back and respects us when we resist Him. But when we open our hearts to Him fully and welcome Him, bid Him come in, He works miracles of joyful cleansing within our hearts.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: In this Lent, as you struggle to work on your conversion like the man struggling to enter the Bethesda pool, ask Jesus to send His cleansing Spirit into your heart to perform in a moment what all your struggles cannot bring to completion: The purification of your heart, and therefrom, its return to full life in Him.

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January 12, 2021January 4, 2021

All Aboard

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

The whole story arc of Jesus Incarnation, life, Passion, death, and Resurrection is one of descent and abasement to our level, calling to us to join Him, and then return to His glory, bringing us with Him.

This is not something that we become a part of by being friendly, doing our workaday job well, or baking cookies for the church fundraiser.

We do exercise our part, of course, in all of those simple things with love–but the fundamental element is union with God, achieved first of all through the sacraments, and secondly (also very importantly) through daily contemplative prayer.

It’s as though we live underground in New York City; Jesus comes down to get us and arrives where we are on the subway–it’s all about getting on that train. And staying on it. Then suddenly, one day, we’ll find ourselves at the top of One World Trade Center–not because we have earned our way up, but because He has brought us there.

Today’s gospel is full of that story arc, showing us the events surrounding the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. It starts with what might be ascribed to any prophet, or arguably to any charismatic leader: The crowds are astonished at his words. (Of course, Jesus’ words are not just well strung together–they bring with them the impact of the Holy Spirit.)

But then, next frame in the movie, Jesus does something not accessible to the run-of-the-mill orator. He ejects an unclean spirit from a person possessed. No one does this. Only God does this sort of thing. This is God Himself, descended to call us, using His might to clear the path for us to join Him.

Every Christian who truly boards that train, who truly takes advantage of the sacraments and the simply, daily accessible reality of contemplative prayer, can be sure of experiencing the same powerful, encouraging, and purifying aid from the Savior to enable full participation in the destiny He came to bring us.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to come and penetrate your life with the fullness of His power, even though the journey with Him may take you to places you would not choose to go. Ask Him to take over; tell Him your heart is His to lead, unconditionally.

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December 23, 2020December 21, 2020

He Shall Purify

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

We know that Scripture is divinely inspired and believe that the Holy Spirit Himself guided the pen of those special individuals who authored what would come to be collected into Jewish Sacred Scripture and then the New Testament, forming the Bible.

The same level of prominence and guarantee of direct divine intervention is not spoken of in relation to the organization of Scriptures in our Catholic liturgy–but there is no doubt that we can see the same hand at work guiding this effort of organization. On so many days, the profound fulfillment of the Old Testament readings chosen in the Gospel passage is beautiful and multi-layered.

On many occasions, the Old Testament prophecies serve to add spiritual and emotional depth of understanding to the events historically laid out relatively plainly in the New Testament.

Today’s first reading is nearly unparalleled in this regard, except perhaps when one considers prophecies such as that of the suffering servant in Isaiah read on Good Friday (cf. Is. 53).

And the stunning element of today’s organization of Scriptures is not necessarily just that the Old Testament reading foreshadows or clarifies today’s Gospel passage, but that the two work together–in different ways–to foreshadow and shed brilliant, vividly colorful light on the event that we will celebrate imminently at Christmas.

There are two concepts in particular that leap off the page in the first reading. First, the word “Suddenly.” “Suddenly there will come to the temple the LORD whom you seek.” The word “Suddenly” implies something unexpected, in a sense unprepared-for.

And indeed, what did man do to prepare the coming of God in the flesh, or to bring about this mad miracle of God’s love? Absolutely nothing. Until the Annunciation of the angel Gabriel to Mary, there is no evidence that any human on the planet ever dared conceive of such a radical form of divine action–even though that action was foreshadowed in the divinely inspired Old Testament Scriptures.

The miracle of the Incarnation of God in human flesh–this wonderful, unexpected initiative of God in response to our black, ugly, and hopeless rejection of Him in sin–is subject of endless fruitful contemplation and meditation. If He will take this level of creative initiative relative to the whole of the human race, what initiative will He not take in your life, if you sincerely and repeatedly invite Him in!

The second concept that leaps from today’s page is the tidy summation of the entire story arc and intent of the Incarnate Savior’s mission.

“And he will purify the sons of Levi, refining them like gold or like silver that they may offer due sacrifice to the LORD. Then the sacrifice of Judah and Jerusalem will please the LORD, as in the days of old, as in years gone by.”

There is not a single human being whom God creates whom He does not intend for eternal salvation, by the power of His Son’s sacrifice. But He also knows full well the many who will reject that gift and fall short of salvation. In the end, the final objective of His incarnate act is the “Sons of Levi”–those who willingly offer themselves to Him.

Now, one may think of the “Sons of Levi”–Levites being the priests of the Old Testament–as an image the continuum of the ministerial priesthood between the Old and New Testaments, but that is not the meaning considered in this reflection. This reflection, rather, considers this term as a metaphor for the continuum of the entire People of God between Old and New Testaments, in their common sharing of the priestly mission, the so-called common priesthood of the faithful. By that common priesthood, the entire people of God participates in the offering of sacrifice to God.

From the moment after the fall of Adam and Eve, with the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, the People of God have been making sacrifices to God representing their desire to give their very selves back to Him, recognizing that this effort involves atonement for the grave error of sin, both of the individual and of our race.

But these sacrifices are mere symbols with no effect, until Jesus comes and makes the gift of the human self back to God, with its element of atonement, actually real, possible and effective.

He does this first of all by offering Himself as THE pleasing sacrifice, single-handedly winning for us the re-opening of the door to Heaven.

But the reading points to another element of the glorious power of this act. In His redemptive act, begun with His Incarnation, the Word made flesh actually purifies the sons of Levi–that THEY may offer unto the Lord due sacrifice. Or as an ancient Catholic translation puts it, an offering in justice; or as Handel’s Messiah puts it, an offering in righteousness.

This purification of each of us is necessary, not just to offer as a race our great Sacrifice, which is Christ Himself, but also to offer in a finite way, seconding that sacrifice, our very selves. In His redemptive act, Jesus purifies us to be a truly and actually righteous part of His acceptable gift, which is elevated through His merit to a dignity that we cannot even fathom while in our earthly lives.

THIS is the great story arc of Jesus’ Incarnation, and it is worthy of a whole season’s meditation.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus: Come, Lord, come this Christmas and purify me! Set the trajectory for my life that You choose–one that, even if it incorporates some suffering, will fully purify my gift of self to You to be an offering in righteousness. I open the door of my heart completely to You, the great Refiner, with your fire of purification, and I do so without fear. Come, Lord Jesus!

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November 2, 2020October 17, 2020

The Day of the Dead

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

All Souls Day. On this day we commemorate specifically, as can be seen from our readings, all those Christian souls who have passed on from this life, who have gone before us. We think of and pray for the dead.

The readings are not all about Purgatory. They are about the dead, and how their hope in God is not in vain. The readings are all about hope.

The readings are not all about Purgatory, but this day is. If it were not so, there would be no All Souls Day–only yesterday’s feast, All Saints Day. The definition of a saint is one who is in Heaven. If all faithful Christians who passed were in Heaven, All Saints Day and All Souls Day would be the same thing.

Yet, this is not “Purgatory Day,” but rather, “All Souls Day.” The focus is not on the difficult purification that souls must undergo after death prior to reaching Heaven but rather, appropriately, on the value of the faithful Christian soul itself, how God cherishes it, and how He holds it in His hand.

As such, we could thing that Purgatory is something of an eccentric, even embarrassing doctrine, one that no one really understands and no one knows what to do with.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. The first reading underscores the meaning of Purgatory perfectly: “As gold in the furnace, He proved them.”

Purgatory is actually critical and central to what is essential to Christian doctrine: Namely, the process of salvation and sanctification.

Jesus came to shed His blood for us. This was a big deal. He wasn’t going to do that and leave us in a state of half-baked mediocrity.

No, Jesus came for the big prize. He came for our complete purification and sanctification in order to realize–as the object of the game–our complete exaltation. He wanted nothing less for us than a true and transforming participation in the divine nature. You don’t get that unless your free will is completely and totally centered on Him, purified from any other attachments. The big prize.

To insist, however, that this purification come to complete fulfillment in this broken world, full of the fruits of sin and constant temptation, would be harsh. Most of us who are striving to choose God consistently, and keep away from the complete rejection of His path for us that is serious sin, will, however, die with some attachment to creatures and some habits of lesser sin that we have not shaken. These habits constitute weaknesses and impurities that would cause undo suffering in the presence of God.

“As gold in the furnace, He proved them.” There are some who posit that the purifying fire of Purgatory is the presence of the fullness of God’s love itself, which causes suffering in our souls due to their unworthy attachments. That this love itself is what burns away the impurities in the gold.

Whatever the case, Purgatory–purification after death–is a mercy, both because God does not allow us to be condemned due to our minor attachments, and because He allows us a finite period after death by which our souls reach the fully sanctified state for which He created us. It is a mercy because, despite minor faults with which we may die, we still come to reach the fullness of the elevated destiny won for us in Christ–the glory of which we cannot even begin to fathom here on earth.

There is a further mercy about Purgatory: The Church teaches us that we can lighten/shorten the time of souls’ purification through our prayers for them. One can infer here that our prayers bring special grace to fortify these souls, as protein does a body builder, as they go through their spiritual “workout” after death. Prayers for the dead are our way of participating in mercy of God by which He prepares them for profound eternal union with Himself.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Think of persons you have loved, who have passed. Speak to Jesus about them, about the reasons He loves them so much, what He loves about them. Ask Him to speed their period of purification, if it is still ongoing (and if not, to apply your prayers to another soul in need). Consider visiting a cemetery today or in the next couple of days. If you do and you pray for your special departed friend there, fulfilling some basic requirements you will find here, you can win for them immediate culmination of their purification and entry into Heaven. Also: Read through the readings for today again, and praise God for the hope He gives to us for eternal salvation and sanctification.

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October 10, 2020September 20, 2020

Amusement Park Lines

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

St. Paul’s juxtaposition of the Old and new Testament periods, to which in a general way he refers as the Law and Faith, is fascinating and rich, and includes many deep layers.

Today, he tells us that the Law held God’s people under discipline as they awaited liberation by faith, that is, by the unmerited and free gift of redemption in Christ, which no amount of adherence to the Law could deserve. The image comes to mind of schoolchildren on a class trip to an amusement park waiting in an orderly line for the park to open. The discipline of the line is certainly not the liberating joy of the park–but it is a prerequisite for getting in.

One fascinating layer of this is that this dynamic applies not only to the Old and New Testaments, but also to the spiritual life of each of us. In so many words, St. Teresa of Jesus, from 16th-century Avila in Spain, teaches us that as we get underway in the spiritual life, much of our focus is on the effort of clearing our lives of voluntary sin, which she compares to the clearing of a garden for planting. At some point, we have a taste of God that really turns our head around. Then, we find that in order to live a life in God, we need to change our lives. Upon which follows the arduous work that St. Teresa describes of removing voluntary sin, both big and small, from our lives.

Needless to say, the effort to avoid sin continues throughout the whole trajectory of our spiritual growth. But it is particularly central earlier in that trajectory.

This effort to avoid sin, that is, essentially, to follow the Ten Commandments, closely resembles the Old Testament rule of Law that reigned before the coming of Christ, which Paul describes. Even though Christ has already come to save us, we go through a period when we need to really focus on following the basics of Divine Law, in order to align our lives with acceptance of His free gift of salvation.

But like the Old Testament period of Law-focused preparation, our focus on avoiding sin is less like the joy of the amusement park and more like the discipline of the line to get in. Perfection in this discipline, as much as it might be the ideal we strive for, is not our ultimate destination, any more than it is in the amusement park line. As we progress in our life in Christ, and in particular, our contemplative prayer life, the experience of Jesus Himself becomes deeper and richer and eventually supersedes the experience of our own sin and the need to rid ourselves of it. We begin to experience the joy of the park that we will only experience fully in Heaven, and our spiritual life begins to focus on it.

Interestingly, St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross also describe how deeper moments of purification can follow after great periods of the “joy of the park.”

Two things to note here: 1) We must not rush the process of purification or grow impatient with it. God is very wise about human nature embedded in time, and that our nature needs time for purification and growth. The humility to accept God’s will associated with every phase in our spiritual growth itself is a beautiful gift to God and sign of a certain spiritual maturity. 2) We will never fully escape here on earth the need for great vigilance against sin and the sometimes discouraging awareness of our spiritual weakness and fragility. But if we make the sacrifice associated with this very realization our daily gift to God, he uses that gift as a great lever that brings disproportionate blessings and an outpouring of the grace He merited on the cross into our lives and the lives of many souls in need.

“Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it,” Jesus says in the Gospel. This means following God’s lead in our spiritual life–which may mean heavy emphasis on following the Commandments and avoiding sin at certain moments in our spiritual life, and focusing on simply enjoying God’s presence for a deepening of our union with Him at others.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Jesus indirectly references the Blessed Virgin Mary in today’s Gospel passage as her who “hears the word of God and observes it.” Meditate on her instruction at the wedding at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.” (cf. Jn. 2:5) She modeled this instruction in her own life, following God’s lead without missing a beat, even when it jolted her in a moment out of one whole reality and into another at the Annunciation. Chat with her about her expertise in this area, and ask her to help you discern God’s promptings in your spiritual life.

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September 7, 2020August 25, 2020

Purification: A Means to an End

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

Purification from sin is not like purification of water, where the object is a clear, sterile substance free from contamination. The objective of purification from sin is not the purification itself, for the sake of a soul unaffected by external entities.

Rather, the process of purification from sin is like the removal of clutter from a launching pad so that a rocket–which, unlaunched, is just a collection of earthy metal and chemical fuel–can shoot beyond the stratosphere to an entirely new reality.

Far from the sterilization of a substance from all external influences, as with the purification of water, purification from sin is like cleaning up a room for a party. Welcoming the outsider is the whole point of this purification process, for it is the person from the outside–the friend, the family member–who brings joy and makes the whole process worthwhile. Only, in the case of purification from sin, the “outsider” is the divine Guest, God Himself, who transforms our lives and takes them beyond earthly joy to an entirely new stratosphere.

As we see in today’s dramatic first reading and psalm, purification from sin is a truly critical part of welcoming this Guest. St. Paul describes it as handing over the flesh to Satan, so that the spirit may be saved. Pretty intense image. Reminds one of Christ instructing the Pharisees to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. Satan can have his sin. What we want is Christ.

Purification from sin is critical, for as today’s psalm says:

For you, O God, delight not in wickedness;
no evil man remains with you;
the arrogant may not stand in your sight.

Because of His own veneration of human freedom, and the limits He has put on Himself because of it, God cannot enter in where sin reigns. We must be fully purified of the reign of sin, like a clean room, before God can fully enter in as Guest of honor. Before the countdown sequence can begin to the launch of our souls to the infinite heights of God Himself.

And what is the destiny of this launch? What destiny are we preparing for as we “tidy up the launchpad?” Today’s gospel reveals it to us. It is certainly not sterile, perfect compliance with a dead book of rules that does nothing for anyone. The destiny is the infinitely potent Charity of the Heart of Christ. It is the passion, the thirst, and–importantly–the power, the glorious power to effect the salvation and happiness of our neighbor. It is the same powerful passion for others that leads God made man to cure a withered hand on the Sabbath.

Recently, a priest commented how the Holy Spirit is moving with His gifts in the world today–how we have those gifts at our fingertips, if we just have the faith to reach for them. Specifically, he was commenting how abundantly the Holy Spirit gives the gift of miraculous physical healing power to those who trust Him and reach out for that gift. It is the same gift by which Jesus heals in the gospel today.

But even more importantly, a life purified from sin and given over consciously and daily to God gradually grows in Charity to the point that that daily gift itself, regardless of how it manifests itself in external activity, brings about per se a continuous burst of additional actual grace from God, and many souls are healed, converted, and saved. If we knew the kinetic power of a purified soul, given to God in trust and love, all external endeavors would take on a relative importance to us and become filled with the joy of continuous awareness of our gift–the potency of our lives given freely and trustingly to God.

The destiny of purification is not purification itself, but the fullness of our lives to bursting with the joy of God and with His potent Charity.

Ideas for conversation with the Lord: Ask Jesus to make your daily effort to turn to Him and away from sin not the drudgery of removing the impurities from something for the sake of purification, but the ordering of your soul for its true fulfillment in Him. Ask Him with passion and urgency to help you purify your soul so that He can enter in more fully. Most importantly, tell Him that the goal of your efforts is not your own spiritual “tidiness,” but your love for Him and for the people He loves. Ask Him in as your Guest, to fill your soul and your life completely, to bursting.

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August 21, 2020July 30, 2020

Reconstruction

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

When we read the first reading, we may wonder what all this is about layering sinews upon bones, and then once the body is reconstructed, infusing spirit. There is a sense of a process of rebuilding. When we think about recovering from sin, we most often think of the cleansing/purifying aspect. We go to confession, and we are fully cleansed, fully new–we can start over.

But in the spiritual life, in addition to the point-in-time cleansing process of God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of Penance, there is also a massive rebuilding process that God undergoes with the soul. And it tends to be long and drawn out, not because He can’t do things quickly, but because He respects the limitations of our nature and does not want to overwhelm us.

When we are born into original sin, we are born with our nature in a sense in ruins. When we are baptized, our friendship with God is restored and He enters in. But all of the ruin of our nature is not suddenly restored thereby. Our being remains in spiritual blindness, coldness, darkness, and much of what we are pulls us forcefully away from God.

Through a consistently cultivated life of prayer and the sacraments, and daily effort to say “yes” to God based upon a conscious decision for Him, we partner with Him in the rebuilding process. We work with Him to allow His grace to lay sinew on bone, skin on sinew, and then increasingly to infuse the whole with His spirit. Blessed are those who consciously decide for God from a young age, for such a decision tends to be more straightforward and whole-hearted, and God can do great things in a shorter period of time.

But what is the target state of this rebuilding process? Conveniently, we find it in today’s Gospel:

“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Perfect love–union with God and obedience to God, and profound charity to neighbor–is the target state toward which God’s process of rebuilding the human person tends. The process passes through the sometimes long and difficult phases of detachment, purification, and spiritual dryness described by the great spiritual masters. It also passes through ever deeper and more fulfilling experiences of God. So buckle up. Because this isn’t an optional challenge in the spiritual life. It’s a commandment–THE Commandment.

Ideas for conversation with God: Consider that your spiritual life may have difficult periods ahead as you paddle upriver to keep consistent in your “yes” to God, and He goes to work on your soul. Tell Him you are giving Him a blank check to fill in. Tell Him that you know He is worth it. (“To whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” Jn. 6:68) Tell Him you are committed for the full journey. Ask Him to give you the strength to persevere in this most wonderful process, for which He paid with His blood.

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