Do not cage the Holy Spirit

Soy yo Dios de cerca solamente, dice Jehovah, y no Dios desde muy lejos? Jeremias 23, 23

Oh profundidad de las riquezas de la sabiduria y de la ciencia de Dios! Cuan insondables son sus juicios, e inscrutables sus caminos! Romans 11, 33

Hacia Ti deseo dirigir mis pasos, mi camino y mi paz, justicia y gracia, ambos eres Tu y eternamente Tu.

Indeed God is deeper and wider and beyond imagination.

Yesterday.

Yesterday found me wandering the streets of Assisi. And the big story of Francis is that he reminded the people that Jehovah God is now at work, and not simply a theoretical concept of the distant and dusty past or reserved for the equally distant streets of gold. Even now we can know Him and experience His power and grace and love. The joy and unity is for now, and this truth was cold refreshing water to thirsty souls.

And this truth is for now as well. Just yesterday, Francis the Pope spoke to 50,000 in Rome , and reminded thirsty souls of the need for “conversion to the love of Jesus” that is life-changing and turns a Christian into “a witness to God’s love.”

“I hope that you will share with all in the Church the grace of baptism in the Holy Spirit,” Pope Francis said. “I expect from you an evangelization with the Word of God that proclaims that Jesus lives and loves all humankind.” He said he hopes that they will witness to “spiritual ecumenism” with all Christians of other Churches and communities.

He is alive. We serve a living Lord.

At work to will and to work His good purpose.

And yesterday, Nicole gave a little back rub and blessing to a friend of Marcos, as we sat under the trees and watched the children and parents cavort across the park next to the Basilica of Saint Clair with their strips of red and yellow fabrics and the building boxes painted with pictures of Assisi and the world. And she wept tears of joy.

And somehow we ended up as her guest at, how shall I describe it, a political party potluck in which all the important doctors and lawyers and socialites of Lugo served served pasta and shrimp and steak and gelato while a politician proclaimed that if we voted for him, he would bring us twenty years into the future, but if we voted for the other guy, we would go thirty years into the past, all with a very loud rock and roll band cranking out American tunes of the seventies?

And afterwards we climbed up to the garden restaurant on top of the 14th century castle in the central plaza of town, and she served us a platter of the ten most, well, the adjective they used was "precious," cheeses imaginable and breads and yet one last bottle of wine. And we spoke of many things, but ended up once again sharing the surprising interventions of God into the lives of man, inexplicable and beyond tracing out.

But these are only interventions from my perspective. In His view, He holds this all in the palm of His hand, from beginning unto everlasting.

For from Him and through Him and for Him are all things. To Him be the glory and honor forever. Amen.

May we bring to all the gospel of life

So God created man in His own image,
in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them.
And God blessed them. Genesis 1:27-29

So of all things, I am reading the Apostolic Exhortation of Pope Francis this morning. And it is an exhortation for joy and gratitude for God’s great love and goodness as demonstrated on the Cross. The opening line sets the parameters:  THE JOY OF THE GOSPEL fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. And it is an overwhelming and powerful call to joyful evangelism and I cannot but rejoice at the revival of His Spirit across the globe in this time of strife and fear and turmoil.

The Church which “goes forth” is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice. An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast. Such a community has an endless desire to show mercy, the fruit of its own experience of the power of the Father’s infinite mercy. Let us try a little harder to take the first step and to become involved. Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. The Lord gets involved and he involves his own, as he kneels to wash their feet. He tells his disciples: “You will be blessed if you do this” (Jn 13:17). An evangelizing community gets involved by word and deed in people’s daily lives; it bridges distances, it is willing to abase itself if necessary, and it embraces human life, touching the suffering flesh of Christ in others. Evangelizers thus take on the “smell of the sheep” and the sheep are willing to hear their voice. An evangelizing community is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way, no matter how difficult or lengthy this may prove to be. It is familiar with patient expectation and apostolic endurance. Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time. Faithful to the Lord’s gift, it also bears fruit. An evangelizing community is always concerned with fruit, because the Lord wants her to be fruitful. It cares for the grain and does not grow impatient at the weeds. The sower, when he sees weeds sprouting among the grain does not grumble or overreact. He or she finds a way to let the word take flesh in a particular situation and bear fruits of new life, however imperfect or incomplete these may appear. The disciple is ready to put his or her whole life on the line, even to accepting martyrdom, in bearing witness to Jesus Christ, yet the goal is not to make enemies but to see God’s word accepted and its capacity for liberation and renewal revealed. Finally an evangelizing community is filled with joy; it knows how to rejoice always. It celebrates at every small victory, every step forward in the work of evangelization.
Well, there are 100 pages of such exhortation. And as I put together my Thanksgiving dinner to do list for the four o’clock feast, I must smile at the line, Jesus does not tire of saying to us: “Give them something to eat” (Mk 6:37).

May today be a joyful celebration of God’s blessing, new every morning, great is His faithfulness. May today be a renewal against the gray pragmatism of the daily life of the Church, in which all appears to proceed normally, while in reality faith is wearing down and degenerating into small-mindedness.

And may the table be full of purposeful conversation: which is always respectful and gentle, the first step is personal dialogue, when the other person speaks and shares his or her joys, hopes and concerns for loved ones, or so many other heartfelt needs. Only afterwards is it possible to bring up God’s word, perhaps by reading a Bible verse or relating a story, but always keeping in mind the fundamental message: the personal love of God who became man, who gave himself up for us, who is living and who offers us his salvation and his friendship. This message has to be shared humbly as a testimony on the part of one who is always willing to learn, in the awareness that the message is so rich and so deep that it always exceeds our grasp. At times the message can be presented directly, at times by way of a personal witness or gesture, or in a way which the Holy Spirit may suggest in that particular situation. If it seems prudent and if the circumstances are right, this fraternal and missionary encounter could end with a brief prayer related to the concerns which the person may have expressed. In this way they will have an experience of being listened to and understood; they will know that their particular situation has been placed before God, and that God’s word really speaks to their lives.

And may we not prove hard of heart and mind; we are forgetful, distracted and carried away by the limitless possibilities for consumption and distraction offered by contemporary society. May there be a tenderness and sweetness as I gather with friends and family to celebrate in humility His generous blessings, and an eagerness to living with an open hand.

God is so good. He is so good to me, just one of His beloved children, one of His cherished image bearers. Honor and glory to His name, forever and ever.

Amen.

Scrabbling in the dirt

But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Matthew 22:29

Once again we heard Jay wax eloquently about the power of words, The Verb. And he is very persuasive with his images and stories and statistics and piercing questions. And we all left the service glorifying God for His great gift.

But the end of the story is not the words.

It is the person of God. And His great power. 

Because I know that those words can lie lifelessly on the paper waiting, impotent. Sitting on dusty shelves or in bottom drawers all over the world. Or worse, they can be gathered up and crumpled together and hurled like a weapon. At the foundering or distressed. You can even text those pelting stones. And If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Words, words, words
I'm so sick of words
I get words all day through
First from him, now from you
Is that all you blighters can do?

Don't talk of stars, burning above
If you're in love, show me
Tell me no dreams, filled with desire
If you're on fire, show me

Never do I ever want to hear another word
There isn't one, I haven't heard
Here we are together in what ought to be a dream
Say one more word and I'll scream

Sing me no song, read me no rhyme
Don't waste my time, show me
Please don't implore, beg or beseech
Don't make a speech, show me

                                    -My Fair Lady

And I deal in words all day long. I mean, I read the entire Odyssey Saturday.  And ever so many translator commentaries about Homer combining fixity and flexibility and all of those winged words pouring eloquently off of golden god-like tongues. And I spent all day yesterday, well, almost all day, figuring out how to teach Greek roots and prefixes and suffixes and how to tug teenagers through the process of writing a respectable journey poem complete with keenings and I am going to include a story or two of Scott’s about life in Somalia and trying to learn a language chock full of keenings and making little game boards for charades of palabras de emoción and what is sustainability all about anyways and labeling lots of 3 ounce cups with “human needs” and “agriculture needs” and it’s going to be a busy day today.

Marco and Matteo just returned from Assisi, where they gathered with over 20,000 other young people longing to hear from this new pope, Francis, a burnished and brilliant homily of words that would forever inspire and transform. And it was humiliating. And I tried to clarify terms with Marco, humbling? Because sometimes we don’t speak the same language, but no, he meant humiliating.

Because so often words bring power, in the epic hero sense of power, as in a hero is “not only a warrior and a leader, but also a polished speaker who can address councils of chieftains or elders with eloquence and confidence,” copied straight from my PowerPoint presentation. And there the eager and ready and gifted and educated ready-to-be-set-on-fire Restless Ones waited for the match. We are going to overcome the world. Waiting for a spectacular act of renunciation along the lines of his namesake who stepped out of his robes on this very spot. Waiting for a hero to follow with sword brandished high. And that is not what they heard. Rather it was a quiet call to each of us to renounce our own worldliness and be conformed ever more closely to Christ. Mere words can be empty; rather we are to listen to God in silence, in prayer and in the Sacraments. Not our burnished words, but rather our knees are burnished, from kneeling in prayer and service. So Marco headed back to Lugo and began babysitting a severely handicapped teenager so the family can have one quiet evening a week and harvesting grapes which is really not at all a picturesque affair, but sticky and gooey and slightly rotted and there are lots of flies. And saying no every day to the world and yes to the Unknown.

Humiliating. It is not about me and my gifts and my powers and my words of wisdom and understanding.

I must remember that Jesus’ most convicting sermon was silently scrabbling in the dirt.

And his most powerful words were this: It is finished.

Nothing I can say.  He said it all.