Seeing the face of God

 

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James and went up the mountain to pray. As he prayed, the aspect of his face was changed and his clothing became brilliant as lightning. Suddenly there were two men there talking to him; they were Moses and Elijah appearing in glory, and they were speaking of his passing which he was to accomplish in Jerusalem.

Luke 9:28 – 32

There are moments in our lives that are totally transformative. They are moments of inspiration, realization, acceptance, unveiling, creativity, or ecstasy. It is at these junctures that we move from one understanding or perception to another: the change may well be graduated, or instantaneous. But the effect is the same. The person I was before this change was effected is in some subtle or less than subtle way made anew.

Falling in love, seeing your newborn child, sending your children off to university, becoming a grandparent, losing a partner and even death itself generates that transition from one state to another. Our lives are punctuated and perhaps even measured by such experiences, they may equally be highlights or lowlights, full of pleasure or pain, self-revealing or disclaiming, gentle or explosive, tragic or comic. It can lead us to grow and it can lead us to withdraw. It is what we make of that moment, that experience, that learning that will enable us to truly be transformed.

The story of the Transfiguration appears in each of the synoptic Gospels. It is a story utterly drenched in images, symbols and metaphors. It is an encounter between man and God (akin to Moses on Mt Sinai), the bridging between heaven and earth, the present reality with the future expectation. It is not only about what happens to Jesus, it is about what happens to the disciples who are shaken from their weariness and most imperatively, about happens to me when I am face to face with the glory of God. Thus the transfiguration becomes a deep, transforming experience for those disciples, for they have seen, but must now listen (Listen to him) and with this a revelation of Jesus’ ultimate mission, the breaking open of the kingdom here on earth with him as the bridge to eternal life. Moses’ and Elijah’s presence are the assurance that the faithful will be rewarded.

In our neighbours, in our streets and towns, in places far from our own we encounter the face of God. Not a God of glory, but most often a God of suffering and hurt, hunger and destitution. If I am called to anything in this transfiguration story, it is to allow others to be transformed through my actions, my faith in them, in my compassion – and allow others to see beyond the “me” and to look into the face of that God of glory.

Seeking Lent

We enter Lent marked on our foreheads with the sign of the cross, with ash that symbolises our humanity, our fleeting and transitory lives, declaring our dependence on God’s love. The psalmist expresses his absolute confidence in Psalm 91, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust’.

For centuries the rhythm of the seasons was reflected in the life of the church and its celebrations. The sparseness of winter leading to spring made the church’s season of Lent accessible, Christmas was celebrated on the old Roman winter solstice. In our world where food and drink remains plentiful the year round, it is difficult to make sense of these seasons or think beyond wrapped Christmas presents and chocolate eggs. The growing disconnectedness we have to the wax and wane of the four seasons is equally mirrored in our alienation from the church, from its religious, theological and liturgical language and actions.

Lent then can bring a new opportunity for you – even if it comprises stolen moments of quiet and reflection. But ask yourself:

• What – right now – are my deepest needs?
• Who and what are most important in my life?
• How can I make myself more available to do the things that I ought to do?
• Does the church in its wisdom and love have something to assist me?

Growing into who we are

In the frantic and busy lives of our families, it can be difficult to get a measure of our own gifts, let alone the gifts of our spouses and children. It can be quite an eye-opening experience to hear people talk about your gifts or your children’s – ‘Is this my son?’ ‘Are they really talking about me?’

My two sons are teachers. They’re great teachers, so I’m told – and that’s from their principals. Are these the hyperactive kids who zapped through our lives and drove us crazy? Well, yes they are. Seeing what is right in front of our own eyes can be obscured by the closeness of our relationships. Try and remember conversations your aunts had about various relatives – as if they could foresee how everyone would turnout!

From the liturgy this week the Gospel (Mark 6:1 – 6) tells the story of how Jesus returned home and on the Sabbath taught in the local synagogue.  His old neighbours and relatives were astonished: Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary? The consequence of which was that Jesus was unable to perform any mighty deeds there because of the lack of faith.

A staff member recently attended a school reunion on the northwest, and the surprises and not-so-surprising stories that emanated from the lives of old school friends found ready ears. Reunions are great opportunities to evaluate our own achievements, to acknowledge the success of our peers, to reacquaint, to remember. We see latent talent blossom into enterprise, emerging gifts become surgeon’s hands, inquisitive minds flying jet planes, inventive ingenuity creating farming implements and nascent tenderness leading to devoted parenthood.

The true measure of who we are and what we are capable of becoming is seen through the eyes of faith, and having those who love us, nurture us and teach us, believe in us, to have dreams and ambitions for us that will be unfettered and liberating.

If we choose to realize the potential in others, in our children or spouse or friends, we must learn to have faith and be faithful so that mighty deeds will be performed in every home, in every classroom and workplace. And, not for a moment should we underestimate the power of God.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God

Jesus said to the crowds: "Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day."

John 6:37 – 40

For the Christian, death is not the end. To reduce Christian belief to a set of values, even ‘Gospel values’ undermines the principles upon which our faith is built – the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. As Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1Cor 15:14): And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is useless and our faith is useless. The resurrection of Jesus isn’t an added extra, because it is the precursor, the hope, for all who believe. It has been the driver for two thousand years. This approaching Commemoration of the All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day) on 2 November is a cogent reminder that prayer for those who have died is still a powerful tool.

The past year has flown quickly since my mother reached out for her eternal reward, and it is my utter conviction that she lives anew with the Lord. I often wonder how those who have no faith think about their loved ones who have died.

Prior to the Hellenization of the ancient near east, the Hebrews believed that death was utterly terminal, that there was nothing after the grave. Socrates, Pythagorus and Plato popularized the Egyptian-sourced concept of the separation of body and soul, and of the soul’s immortality. The Greeks introduced this to Palestine, so that by Jesus’ time, the concept was popular amongst the Jews.

Exactly what that ‘life with the Lord’ looks like or sounds like – of that I am not sure, whether personality continues with the soul, or whether in the same way our bodies merge into the earth once more, our eternal selves merge into a greater being or whether individual souls are infinitely separate. The Church itself teaches of the perdurance of the soul and of the intimacy that comes from friendship with God.

From the moment of death to the resurrection this friendship endures and the faithful are finally transformed.

There are many customs surrounding All Souls Day, many of which have over time  been suppressed or reformed. It is not obsessive or ghoulish to remember those who have died. Our remembrance is a spark of the eternal life that they already live. Once again St Paul writes (Romans 8:38 – 39):

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Insight

Jesus said to him in reply, "What do you want me to do for you?"
The blind man replied to him, "Master, I want to see."

Mark 10:51 - 52

American novelist and essayist Flannery O’Connor (1925 – 1964) was a Catholic writer who wrote from the depth of the American South and indeed from the depth of her faith. Her writing often focused on questions of morality and ethics. What makes her writing exceptional, however, is ‘how she challenged the self-assurance of her Catholic and secular readers. Her stories expressed her sense of sacrament and of the possibility of redemption in the midst of the strangeness of ordinary life’ (Richard O’Brien).

It is not that either sacrament or the sacred are missing from our ‘ordinary lives’, it is usually because we fail to see it there. For the community of Mark the evangelist, Jesus reveals himself, sometimes ‘secretly’, until his mission is fully unveiled. Indeed it is more through action than word that Jesus is truly revealed.

The story of Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46 – 52), in fact, epitomizes the way in which Mark ‘feeds out’ information – the crowd is trying to keep this blind beggar from calling our for Jesus. He is rebuked but he persists in calling out for Jesus, and he reveals Jesus’ messiahship in calling out, ‘Jesus, son of David!’ Bartimaeus is healed and he follows Jesus.

There are many levels to this story from the literal to the allegorical, but I like the idea, that like Flannery O’Connor, there is a narrative waiting to be told.

Undoubtedly we all want to have sight, but to see and understand, to have insight is something that we learn. On 21 October Pope Benedict XVI canonized seven new saints, including the first (north) American native saint, Kateri Tekakwitha and the second Filipino saint, catechist Peter Calungsod. And while these lives have extraordinary merit and now recognition, it is in our own ordinary lives that Jesus walks with us. His vitality reaches into our acts of charity through to our concern for our neighbor and our care for the poor, into our conversations with the lonely, into the advice and encouragement of our children and those we mentor, into the generosity with which we give our talents to the community and into the joyfulness in the way we accept what life gives us.

It takes insight to see the hand of God at work, as each action ‘feeds out’ a sense of his presence, and those who recognize that hand do call out, ‘Jesus, son of David!’ and in doing so acknowledge the redeeming power of God, of the possibility of salvation. It is in the strangeness of our ordinary lives that God is truly revealed.

Seeking true power

Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;

whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.

For the Son of Man did not come to be served

but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Mark 10:43 - 45

Pope Gregory I, in an attempt to out-manoeuvre John IV, archbishop of Constantinople (who claimed for himself the title of Ecumenical Patriarch), called himself the Servant of the Servants of God. It remains a title of the Roman Pontiff.

The desire for power or self-aggrandizement has accompanied humanity on its journey through history, and it has produced extraordinary, ordinary, disappointing and disastrous leaders. Some are acutely aware of their charisma, of their responsibility, of the effect their actions have on others, while others walk all over others in the process of achieving their goals.

What we do know, is that the model of leadership that places service to others as its priority is, on the whole, rare to see. Its proponents have tended to be deeply committed to an ideal: Aung San Suu Kyi, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King, Dag Hammarskjöld, Desmond Tutu, John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Mary MacKillop. Their service for others is driven by compasson and empathy, a desire to improve and transform lives, a willingness to listen, to draw others into a new vision and to manage resources with wisdom for the benefit of all. They may wield enormous power, political, religious and sometimes economic, but in essence the ideal must be achieved with a persistence, energy and strength that can only be the result of a lifetime’s effort.

While the concept of servant leadership has its beginnings in the market place of the 1970’s it was Robert Greenleaf who explored the need for a new leadership that would value autonomy and human dignity. The Christian servant leader goes further to model themselves on the person of Jesus. The scriptures are a rich in images of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, as the good shepherd, Jesus breaking open the Word on the road to Emmaus, being welcoming, challenging.

We have our share of disappointments with elected leaders, no doubt, and there are some we may note whose ambition for leadership has not been realized in office. But I firmly propose that while there are some great international exemplars of servant leadership, we meet servant leaders every day, and these people require no title, no honorific in order to serve those in need. They labour for Vinnies, Gran’s Van, Camp Quality, Eddie Rice Camps, Youth Off The Streets and a myriad of other causes.   

On happiness

He replied and said to him, "Teacher, all of these [commandments] I have observed from my youth." Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, "You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me." At that statement his face fell, and he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Mark 10:20 - 22

We all want to be happy, we want our children to be happy, but what exactly is happiness, and how is it reached? And when you have breathed your last, will your descendants say of you, ‘He lived a happy life’? This quest has raged for millennia, and was keenly debated by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Socrates asked the question, how do you live a good life? For him, the good life was a life of ethical virtue. Happiness is achieved when we flourish as human beings, but this isn’t an emotive state (or subjective), it is evident to others (objective) who see a person seeking to live the good life by actively pursuing ethical virtue. In Mark’s Gospel (10:17 – 30), Jesus proposes that a life lived well is one where you behave and live ethically and where we use only what is necessary. He is equally clear that what prevents us living ethically is when our possessions own us and when we cannot let them go. It is possible, despite Jesus’ warning to the rich! And if happiness springs from such a life lived well, then Sister Barbara Hateley springs easily to mind. Barbara died after a short illness in Hobart on the weekend. A Missionary Sister of Service for 35 years, I was privileged in knowing her and her wry sense of humour for the past 25 years. She lived the motto of her congregation, ‘Into the highways and byways’ by taking the Gospel across this country: she worked and ministered in Catholic education at state and national levels, in ecumenism, in religious education and faith formation, in the archdiocese’s Office of Church Life and Ministry and turned her time and talents to anything that was asked of her. In Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount happiness is found in and for the poor in spirit, those that mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. And indeed, those who seek such happiness have riches beyond our dreams for they have found a treasure in the field (Matthew 13:44). Vale, Sister Barbara! She lived a happy life, a life lived well.