I have a friend who greatly respects my Church for her role in civilization through the centuries. He appreciates that there are many good things in the world, and many ideas of what sort of attitudes it takes to make it better, that wouldn't exist if it weren't for her living in the world as she has felt called to do. Yet he struggles with connecting her actions to the existence of the God who inspires them, and particularly to the Person whom she proclaims Jesus of Nazareth to be. I'm sure he would agree that Jesus' death on a cross in a foreign land a couple of millennia ago has made an incredible difference in the world. At a minimum, he would acknowledge that what we believe about that event and the aftermath that provides for us its context has had an immeasurably positive impact on the quality of life of countless people. Unlike the staunch atheists of our day, who focus on the Church's many shortcomings and the mistakes that have arisen from our humanity - of which he is also aware - he sees the incalculable good that she has accomplished, and longs to be part of it.
Yet in his integrity, he recognizes that his inability to believe what we do about Jesus Christ is an impediment that must be resolved. I am praying that it will be, for him, and that he can come to believe in a God who has worked in ways wondrous and mysterious, the miraculous ways being all the more so because of their rarity.
(Wow, didn't expect that to go in that direction. Thought #2:)
Fr. Neuhaus was a painstaking communicator who rarely wasted his words. Though he could and did speak at length appropriate to opportunity, each word and phrase, even each repetition, conveyed specific meaning. I noticed this on the occasion I heard him address a men's conference of several thousand, and I see it over and over again in his writing. And what catches my eye at this moment is the repeated phrase "have to." This sentence would have made perfect sense without either of these instances.
In one sense, we don't "have to" live the lives we do. We have many choices available to us that would take us down a different pathway from the one we seem to be on. Yet even if we don't have to live a particular fixed set of circumstances, many are forced upon us beyond our control, and the choices we make affect many others. In the end, we "have to" live our lives, and even if we were to choose to live no longer, we will still have "had to" live the life we've lived. Oh, this is so tricky to convey. There are certainly aspects of our lives with which we are stuck, even if it is true that we have chosen many of them. So what has Good Friday to do with the life I have to live?
Over the next six weeks, I will be focusing each Friday on The Way of the Cross, as prayed with Jubilee. This service gets those of us who enter into it in touch with the Good Friday events in fresh, moving, and inspiring way, a way that breathes fresh life and perspective into us. Somehow, how Jesus "had to" live that last day puts a perspective on how I "have to" live each day. On days when I don't consider it, I don't live as well this life I have to live.
Too, it is inevitable that I will have to die. I've come to the conclusion that the dying that I will have to do at the end of my life will be way more tolerable if I've managed to die bit by incremental bit in living the life I have to live.
And I find another meaning to the word "have" in that repeated phrase, rather than the sense of obligation, that of belonging to. I have one life that it belongs to me to live, which can take many different directions along the way, and one death that belongs to me to die. Living and dying them in the context of Good Friday, which teaches both how to live and how to die, makes all the difference for me and, I pray, for those around me.
I haven't really gotten to any answers amid my many words, so:
These pages are an exploration into mystery. The word "mystery" in this context doesn't mean a puzzle, as in a murder mystery. It is not a thing to be solved, but an adventure into wonder, with each wonder that we encounter leading on to the next and greater wonder. - ibid.
So my ramblings over these weeks of Lent will be for me. It falls to each of us to enter into the mystery of Jesus Christ for ourselves.
Over the next six weeks, I will be focusing each Friday on The Way of the Cross, as prayed with Jubilee. This service gets those of us who enter into it in touch with the Good Friday events in fresh, moving, and inspiring way, a way that breathes fresh life and perspective into us. Somehow, how Jesus "had to" live that last day puts a perspective on how I "have to" live each day. On days when I don't consider it, I don't live as well this life I have to live.
Too, it is inevitable that I will have to die. I've come to the conclusion that the dying that I will have to do at the end of my life will be way more tolerable if I've managed to die bit by incremental bit in living the life I have to live.
And I find another meaning to the word "have" in that repeated phrase, rather than the sense of obligation, that of belonging to. I have one life that it belongs to me to live, which can take many different directions along the way, and one death that belongs to me to die. Living and dying them in the context of Good Friday, which teaches both how to live and how to die, makes all the difference for me and, I pray, for those around me.
I haven't really gotten to any answers amid my many words, so:
These pages are an exploration into mystery. The word "mystery" in this context doesn't mean a puzzle, as in a murder mystery. It is not a thing to be solved, but an adventure into wonder, with each wonder that we encounter leading on to the next and greater wonder. - ibid.
So my ramblings over these weeks of Lent will be for me. It falls to each of us to enter into the mystery of Jesus Christ for ourselves.
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