Ascension 2019, Greet Yourself Arriving

Ascension

John 16: 22-33

So you have to suffer pain now.

William Blake

But I will see you again, and then your hearts will be filled with joy and no one can take that joy from you. Up to now, you have not prayed in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart, that your joy may be fulfilled.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you openly and unveiled about my Father, so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness. Thus will I proclaim to you the being of the Father. On that day you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself will love you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world.

I leave the sense world again and return to the world of the Father, of which you say that it is the world of death.”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. But I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

Pieter Coecke van Aelst, FlemishTapestry 

Ascension Sunday

June 2, 2019

John 16: 24-33

Our heart is the very center of our being. We can imagine our heart as the center of a series of concentric circles, with all our dear ones in closer circles, our acquaintances further out. Our heart is the center of our universe. Others circle our periphery.

Likewise, we ourselves occupy the circles around other people’s hearts. For of course they too have many circles around them. The human world is a labyrinth of interlocking circles, all connected by the famous six degrees of separation.

We are celebrating Christ’s Ascension. It is the time when He expanded His Being, His Heart, into the greatest and the broadest possible series of circles. The circles of His universe include all human beings, even those who have never heard of Him. Christ’s connection to us actually involves zero degrees of separation, for he has expanded His being in ever-widening circles to catch every human heart. The circles of His heart’s love run through the very center of each human heart. And that is where we will find Him—in the deepest, centermost core of our own being, in the innermost core of every human being we encounter.

We have scattered ourselves in division, in loneliness. We ourselves may have placed Christ on one of the circles further out of our own heart, as one of our ‘acquaintances’. But He has connected us directly to His heart. He carries us in His love. So when He urges us to ‘pray from the heart’ (John 16:24), perhaps he is showing us the way to find Him. Perhaps when we enter our own deepest core and find Him there, find the One whose being is Love, we will recognize our true identity.

As we offer this Eucharistic meal, the words of the poet can inspire:

The time will come

when, with elation,

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, ….

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you have ignored…*

Christ is urging us to join our hearts with His, so that we too can love the world as He does.

---

*Derek Walcott, “Love After Love”, in Collected Poems 1948-1984, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.

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6th Easter 2019, Grace-Moments

6^th Easter

John 14: 1-31 adapted from Madsen

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Trust in the power that leads you to the Fatherly Ground of the World and to me. In my Father’s house, there are many rooms. If it were not so, how could I have said to you, ‘I go there to prepare a place for you’?  And when I have gone and prepared a place for you, I will come again and take you up into the realm of my being and working, so that where I work, you also may work. And you know the way where I am going.” 

Then Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus answered, “I myself am the Way—the Truth— and the Life. No one finds his way to the Father but through me. If you had really known my Being, you would have recognized my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen Him.”

Then Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father; that would satisfy our deepest yearning.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long and yet you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Does your heart’s voice not tell you that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. But the Father, who lives eternally in me, continues to do his works in them. Build your faith on the power of my Being that lets you know: I in the Father, the Father in me. Or at least learn to trust through looking at the works themselves that have arisen. 

Truly, truly I say to you, whoever trusts in my Being will also do the works that I do --and greater deeds will he do, because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask for in unity with me, I will do it, so that the deeds of the Father may be revealed in the working of the Son. When you turn to me in prayer in the power of my name, I will be the Creating One in all your works. If you truly love me, you will share in my spiritual goals. And I will ask the Father and He will send to you another Counselor, who will stand by you for ever, even the Spirit of Truth. The earthly world cannot receive this Counselor, for it cannot perceive his working and does not recognize him. But you know him, for he will live with you and will work in you.

I will not leave you desolate—I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. On that day, you will truly know what it means that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you.

Whoever bears my spiritual goals within himself, and brings them to revelation in his working, is one who truly loves me. And whoever truly loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.”

Then Judas, (not the Iscariot) said, “But Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the people who are in the world?

Jesus replied, “Whoever truly loves me reveals my Spirit, and my Father will

love him and we will come to him and prepare with him a dwelling in the everlasting [an eternal dwelling]. Whoever does not love me cannot reveal my Spirit. And the spirit power of the word that you hear is not from me; it is the speaking of the Father who sent me.

These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the health-bringing Spirit, the Counselor whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled nor let them be afraid.

You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and yet I am coming to you’. If you loved me you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I am.

I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may find trust. I no longer have much to say to you, for soon the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me.

But I act in accordance with the Father’s purpose, as it was entrusted to me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Do the same. Arise, let us be on our way.

6^th Easter

May 26, 2019

John 14: 1-31

Charon Ferrying the Dead, Alexander Lytovchenko

There can be many things in life that trouble us—economic insecurity, difficult individuals, illness. All of these things are minor key versions of the one big trouble, our deepest and most innate worry—the fear of death. For in death what we really fear is loss of our own self, and loss of dear ones.

This was indeed a valid fear in the time before Christ’s coming. For it was a true threat—humankind was losing its share in ongoing life. But since Christ’s death and resurrection, we need not fear being extinguished by death. For He has already died our death for us and has prepared a place for each of us to be in the afterworld. “Because I live,” He says, “you will live also,’ John 14:19

Yongsun Kim

We need only, again and again, try to follow his pathway of life.  He gives us the pathway on earth by which to follow Him: our love for Him will guide us.  He says, ‘Whoever bears my spiritual goals within himself and brings them to revelation in his working is the one who truly loves me.’ John 14:21

What are His goals?—that we come to trust in His power in our hearts; that we come to live our lives as an expression of our love for Him; that in loving trust we come to live in Him, the giver of Peace. In loving trust our hearts are peace-filled, even in the face of loss, of illness, or even of death. As Wendell Berry who lives close to the heart of nature says:

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

….I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.*

Nature can give us grace-moments of peace. But Christ gives us the way to the truth of human life - he gives us a peace that comes from another world.

---

*Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things,” in The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry

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5th Easter 2019, Master of the Game

5^th Easter

John 16, 1-33, adapted from Madsen

“All these words I have spoken to you so that you will not go astray [because you discover what destiny falls to you through being connected with me]. For they will exclude you from their communities, and the hour will come when those who kill you will think they are offering service to God. They will do all this because they have not known my Father or me. All these words I have spoken to you so that when the time comes you will remember that I told you about it. In the beginning, I did not need to say such things for I was with you. But now I am going away to him who sent me; yet, none of you asks me “Where are you going?”  Now that I have said these things to you, sorrow enters your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is for your salvation and healing that I leave you, for if I did not go away, the Comforter, the giver of spirit courage, [who will stand by you in all trials, the Spirit upon whom you can call for assistance at any moment,] would not come to you. When I now  go away, I will send him to you. When he comes he will call mankind to account for the decline into sin, for the working of man’s higher being and for the great world separation; for the decline into sinfulness, because they did not fill themselves with my power; for the working of Man’s higher being, because I go to the Father and you see me no more; for the great world-separation, because the decision has already been made about the ruler of this world.

I have yet much more to say to you, but you cannot bear it now. But when the Spirit of Truth comes, he will be your guide on the way to the Truth that Embraces All. he will not speak out of himself, but what he hears he will speak, and he will proclaim to you what is to come.  he will reveal me, for what he draws out of my being he will proclaim to you. Everything that the Father has is also mine. That is why I can say, ‘He will draw upon my being and proclaim to you’.

Yet a short time you will see me no more, and again a short time and you will see me.”

Then some of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying ‘Yet a short time you will see me no more, and again a short time and you will see me’, and ‘I am going to the Father’? They kept asking, “What does he mean by ‘a short time’? We do not understand his words.”

Bible moralisèe The Creation of Eve and The Birth of Ecclesia, 

Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him and he said, “You are wondering that I said, ‘A short time and you will see me no more, and again a short time and you will see me.’  Yes, the truth I tell you, you will weep and lament while other people will rejoice. You will be filled with sorrow, but this your grief will be turned into joy. A woman giving birth must bear pain, for her difficult hour has come. But when the child is born, she no longer considers the anguish because of her joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So it is with you. Now is your time of grief. But this your grief will become the power of Spirit-Birth, for I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and no one can take that joy from you. On that day, you will no longer need to ask me anything.

Yes, I say to you; from now on what you ask of the Father in my name, He will give to you. Until now, you have not been able to pray in my name. Pray from the heart, and it will be given to your heart so that your joy may be full.

All this I have given to your souls in imagery. But the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in pictures but will tell you plainly about the Father, [so that you can grasp it in full, knowing consciousness]. On that day, you will ask out of my power and in my name. And no longer will I ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me, and have known in your hearts that I have come forth from the Father. I have come forth from the Father and I have come into this world. I am leaving the [sense] world again and going to the Father, [of which you say that it is the world of death].”

Then Jesus’ disciples said, “Now you are speaking in clear thought and without imagery. Now we know that all things are revealed to you and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. By this, we believe that you came from God.”

Jesus answered, “Do you now feel my power in your heart? Behold, the time is coming and has already come, when you will be scattered, each to his own loneliness. You will then also leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is eternally united with me.

All this I have spoken to you so that in me you may find peace. In this world, you will have great fear and hardship. But take courage. I have overcome the world.”

5^th Easter

May 19, 2019

John 16: 1 – 33

Devil's Mirror

There is a fairy tale that tells how the devil made a great world mirror, in which everything was distorted unrecognizably into its opposite. This mirror shattered into billions of pieces, and specks flew into people’s eyes. It made them see the wrong side of things. If the specks penetrated into their hearts, their hearts turned to ice.*

In today’s reading from before his resurrection, Christ feels compassion for the disciple’s hearts; for his impending crucifixion will activate such the mirror shards and, for a while, things will not appear to them as they truly are. But He also promises that this condition will be temporary. For, after a short time, He will send a Healer who will remove the specks and show them the Truth. Their vision will be healed of its ills. Although each of them will only see from a certain angle, from a partial perspective, they will indeed see truly.

We human beings are all partial. We are on a path of evolution toward greater wholeness, toward alignment with the greater and great levels of Truth. Moments of suffering and moments of enlightenment follow each other in greater spirals. For, in the words of St. John of the Cross,

If

you were playing chess with someone who

had infinite power and infinite knowledge

and wanted to make you a

master of the game,

where would all the chess

pieces be at every

moment?

Indeed, not only where he wanted them,

but where all were best for your

development;

and that is every situation

of one’s

life.**

*Hans Christian Anderson, “The Snow Queen”.

**St. John of the Cross, “Development", in Love Poems from God, Daniel Ladinsky, p. 322.

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