Spiritus Sanctus

Wednesday after Epiphany Sunday
1 John 4:11-18 | Psalm 71(72):1-2,10-13 | Mark 6:45-52

In love there can be no fear,
but fear is driven out by perfect love:
because to fear is to expect punishment,
and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love. (1 John 4:18)

As I walked back home yesterday, I happened upon a pair of enforcement officers talking to a young lady in Uber Eats livery, standing next to her e-scooter. Most folks have probably cursed such riders in their hearts as they speed by at an alarming pace, so this particular grouping drew more than a few stares from passing pedestrians…and maybe one or two muttered “good, she deserves it!”

I then noticed another e-scooter rider approaching rapidly, but as he noticed the trio, he quickly slowed down and got off his vehicle, choosing to walk past them all instead of risking a stern conversation.

I thought I saw a quick grin flash across the face of the female enforcement officer at the retreating youngster, though I might have been mistaken.

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It’s safe to say that we live in fear: of being caught in immorality, of being judged unworthy, of being ostracized for doing something that no one else is doing…especially if what you’re doing is The Right Thing by some standard.

I see it for myself every time I stop at a “red man” and wait for the crossing signal to turn in my favour…even when there’s no traffic to impede my progress. Inevitably, others will stop and wait behind me as well, until one impatient soul barges past us all and crosses against the light. A beat later, someone else musters enough courage to do the same, and soon a whole bunch of people follow suit.

Unless I stand my ground, in which case there are almost always one or two folks who still hang back, unsure of how to proceed. Their relief when they see both the “green man” come up and me finally crossing the road is almost palpable.

Then, sometimes, I’m the one who barges out into the empty street, dragging the wavering souls behind me.

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St. John reminds us today that “in love there is no fear” and “fear is exorcised by perfect love”. The two are in fact radically opposed: fear is inherently selfish, an inward focus on one’s reputation and communal standing, while love is generous, desiring the good of others above ourselves.

So when we tell ourselves that we don’t know enough to share our faith, that’s crippling FEAR at heart, stopping us from doing what we know we’ve been called to do.

And when we say to ourselves “my friend is lost, and I ought to show him the Way”, that doesn’t guarantee success. We may still make mistakes in the finer details, like when a friend proclaimed that “we mourn Jesus’ passing on Good Friday”.

But when we proceed with the Spirit of LOVE, those occasional mistakes should not impede the general thrust of our message, and our striving to raise others up becomes in turn our compelling witness to God’s love and grace.

For the One who gave up everything, especially His life, brooks no fear and deserves no less from us. He has the power to calm the storms in our lives, and give us the words and actions to spread His Truth to others who haven’t yet heard.

All He asks is that we step up and say, “You called me, Lord, so here I am. Enable me.”

Amen.

Tuesday after Epiphany Sunday
1 John 4:7-10 | Psalm 71(72):1-4,7-8 | Mark 6:34-44

By now it was getting very late, and his disciples came up to him and said, ‘This is a lonely place and it is getting very late. So send them away, and they can go to the farms and villages round about, to buy themselves something to eat.’ He replied, ‘Give them something to eat yourselves.’ They answered, ‘Are we to go and spend two hundred denarii on bread for them to eat?’ ‘How many loaves have you?’ he asked. ‘Go and see.’ (Mark 6:35-38)

“I’m not a professional counselor. What do you expect me to say to that troubled kid?”

“I’m not a trained paramedic, so how do you expect me to help that accident victim?”

As it was with Jesus’ disciples, so it all too often is with us. We don’t have the proper skills and resources to Do The Right Thing, so why bother?

Yet when it’s our child who’s going through a rough patch, or our loved ones bleeding out on a cold pavement, we move heaven and earth to do something, don’t we? Somehow, we muster the compassion to do everything in our power to ease their suffering, and we somehow stem the heartbreak and the bleeding despite our woeful lack of training.

It’s as if God somehow made it all possible, once we summoned the determination to act. As St. Paul reminds us:

It is God, for his own loving purpose, who puts both the will and the action into you. (Philippians 2:13)

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The disciples were probably as weary and hungry as the five thousand men and their families. We can rationalize, from a human point of view, their attitude of “look, master, this is an impossible task for us, let them take care of themselves”.

But Jesus immediately challenges them: “Give them something to eat yourselves. This is what I called you for, so get on with it!”

And He reminds them to search within themselves for the resources to begin the work: “How many loaves have you? You mean you haven’t even bothered to check? Go and see, then start the ball rolling. I’ll be right there beside you, multiplying your meager beginnings into something wonderful indeed.”

So, brothers and sisters, the next time you hear that quiet voice within you:

I’m not a catechist or a lector, so how do you expect me to share God with others?

quash it mercilessly, as you would any unworthy thought of your own inability to “love thy neighbour”.

Then take a hard look at yourself, and ponder with all sincerity what gifts God has given you, no matter how pitiful you think they are. Somewhere in the depths of that nearly-empty basket of yours…is a little candle that, with proper application of a little Holy Spirit, will erupt into a bonfire of love.

GO AND SEE, THEN GET ON WITH IT!

The Lord is waiting. Tarry no longer.

Amen.

Monday after Epiphany Sunday
1 John 3:22-4:6 | Psalm 2:7-8,10-11 | Matthew 4:12-17,23-25

The people that lived in darkness has seen a great light;
on those who dwell in the land and shadow of death
a light has dawned. (Matthew 4:16)

I’m sure many of us have flipped a light switch sometime in our lives…and be left in the dark. We’d then grumble to ourselves, switch on our smartphone’s flash, then hunt for a replacement bulb or tube, cursing the darkness while stubbing our toes against unseen obstacles outside the phone’s meager beam. In pre-smartphone eras, we’d often knock stuff over in our desperate search for the emergency flashlight that’s somehow never where we remember leaving it the last time.

We’ll swear a blue streak, and nurse whatever bruises we collect from blind collisions, but We Will Fix That Light, come hell or high water.

Because we can’t imagine passing the rest of the night without it, dreading the dark unknowns that lurk even in the familiar surrounds of our own home.

Modern smartphone flashes are remarkable in their brilliant output, but their narrow beams just don’t hold a candle to a simple omnidirectional ceiling fixture, that banishes shadows from all corners of the room.

We humans need a great light.

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That explains why large crowds converged on Jesus from all over the Middle East, following in the footsteps of a teacher who was willing and able to shed light on the Kingdom of God, and offer a foretaste through numerous healings.

For when a great light appears out of the darkness of nature or spirit, our natural instinct is to run to it. Only those who live for the stygian blindness of sin would shy away.

So why are we so reluctant to spend time with the great light of the Divine each day?

Perhaps it’s because it also brings to light that which we would prefer to remain hidden: our uglier side, stained by selfishness and twisted by over-indulgence.

Of course, ignoring it doesn’t make it go away, neither our sin-riddled visages nor the Light of self-sacrificing freedom. Far better to embrace clarity, to walk to and in the light, to see our festering wounds that need to be soothed with holiness, and to apply the healing salve of the Way, Truth and Life.

But it all starts with accepting the Light that is Christ, not just with empty words, but with heart and soul.

Maranatha. Our Lord has come. Let us be on our way to meet Him. Amen.

The Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60:1-6 | Psalm 71(72):1-2,7-8,10-13 | Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6 | Matthew 2:1-12

Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:11)

Back in my college days, when my faith was skating on thin ice, I came across an unusual score for the familiar carol We Three Kings. It was unusual in that it deliberately omitted the penultimate verse:

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb

I can only imagine that whoever put that score together ran out of space, and decided to drop those words as “too depressing for Christmastide”. It might have also been motivated by the tide of political correctness that swept across America at the time, giving rise to gender-neutral alterations of familiar words that, well, neutralized a lot of the sacred in our liturgical hymnody.

Now, of course, I look back and shudder, especially at the memory of joyfully skipping to the final verse:

Glorious now behold Him arise
King and God and sacrifice
(oh yeah, gold=king, frankincense=God, and…um…)

but those were the days when I just shrugged and went “meh”.

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And yet…those days of “meh” aren’t entirely behind me.

There are still times when I think about reading the day’s scripture, or spending some quality time in prayer, or even just thinking about God…and the M word pops into my head, instantly sending my train of thought skittering towards the latest tech news, or that new programming language I’ve been trying to master, or that insidious earworm I heard this morning that’s sunk its fangs deep in my brain.

Truly, now more than ever, seeking the Almighty requires sacrifice, an act of will to ignore the secular calls that incessantly clamour for our attention, and consciously set aside time and energy to just be still and know that God is with us, is quietly waiting for us to turn to His loving embrace.

“He is our KING,” oh yes He is!

“He is our GOD”…hallelujah, you better believe it!

“He is our SACRIFICE”…um…

Time for us to own that too, instead of metaphorically dumping the myrrh down a rubbish chute.

“Meh” is mine, but it shouldn’t be
When our Saviour beckons to me
Infant holy, infant lowly
Dying to set us free

Lord, open our eyes to see You in our daily lives, so that we may not stray far from you. Amen.

A dear friend asked me last night why I’d stopped blogging. I honestly couldn’t answer her, so I guess it was a wake-up call…

As I reflect upon this week that straddled two different years, I noticed a disturbing pattern.

From the Faith Formation session I conducted for my choir…

to my answer to a friend asking how to rebut an atheist’s sharing of an anti-religious skit by George Carlin…

to my reply to that same friend remarking how she heard a priest at midday mass revealing that John the Baptist was the apostle with Mary at the foot of the Cross and one of the Evangelists…

my “output” in all three cases was detailed, theologically correct (to the best of my ability)…and clinical. Dry fact upon dry fact,  with nary a drop of love mixed in.

That my Faith Formation session was on Agape a.k.a. Caritas a.k.a. Charity could be seen as supremely ironic, as was my quoting that famous “wedding reading” about love from 1 Corinthians, when just a few verses earlier was St. Paul’s stinging rebuke pointing right back at me:

If I have all the eloquence of men or of angels, but speak without love, I am simply a gong booming or a cymbal clashing.  —1 Cor 13:1

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Lord, you know I love you, yet your message of love is often lost in the way I bear witness to others. Help me soften my passion for your Word of Life with the understanding that only love can light the Way of Truth.

Jesus, reduce me to love. Amen.