How does God answer your questioning prayers? In recent years, most often, God has answered my prayers for understanding within my practice of lectio divina, praying from Scripture through reading, thinking, talking, and resting.
Historically, however, God has tended to answer my questioning prayers through a book I just happen to pick up. There I am, reading in a nonchalant way, and some question or concern I have talked to God about (maybe months or even years before) is answered. A light shines. I understand what I did not understand before. An open tab in my brain is closed, and I experience joy and peace.
That has happened to me this week, reading a chapter on the Eucharist in The Tradition of Catholic Prayer by the Monks of St. Meinrad. This chapter was written by now Abbot Kurt Stasiak, OSB. He was simply Fr. Kurt when he wrote it in 2007. The whole book has been a wonderful tour of Catholic prayer through the centuries, but this chapter turned on a houseful of lights with which to look anew at current questions in the Church that trouble me much.
Today’s Readings
Today’s Epistle and Gospel deal directly with the question, “How do we PRACTICE Christian love?” For example, who is our neighbor? Is our neighbor family and friends or people across the world who might be affected by our choices? Does it make any difference if our neighbor is advocating or living something we perceive as seriously morally wrong? Does it make any difference if our neighbor is Democrat or Republican? What if this neighbor is infringing on our rights or security? Do we go by the 10 Commandments? The Sermon on the Mount? Catholic Social Teaching? The values of our family or culture? Our gut feelings? Logic? Politics?
Good questions to which we need good answers.
The first reading from Acts gives a snippet of the story of change in the church from Jewish sect to universal new faith that demonstrates “How do we practice Christian love?”
“How do we practice Christian love” is one way to frame almost every serious question in the Church today. Moral theology tells us that, in order for an action to be good, it must come from an intention of goodness, have an end of goodness, and be accomplished by a means of goodness. (CCC 1755)
That is the standard of how God loves. And so it is to be our standard, too. But God has the wisdom to clearly discern what is good—for ALL and within the “big picture.”
In today’s readings God gives us some guidance to answer that “HOW” question in our lives.
John 15:9-17
This Scripture continues Jesus’ Farewell Discourse after he has instituted the Eucharist on Holy Thursday. Put yourself in the Upper Room and imagine you are there. You know what is coming because you are experiencing this intimate conversation with 2000 years of Christian history in your understanding, as well as knowing in just a little time the guards will meet Jesus at Gethsemane and he will do what his father commands: lay down his life for his friends. You, in the Upper Room in your imagination, but actually in your prayer time in the 21st century, know what’s coming—in the next few hours and the next many centuries.
What words stand out as guidance? You might turn to this Scripture now and highlight the words that stand out.
Words that stand out to me are: “as the Father loves me, so I love you,” “keep my commandments,” “remain in my love,” “no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” “you are my friends if you do what I command you,” “I chose you…to bear fruit that will remain,” “love one another as I have loved you.”
As I sit with that, it is clear that Jesus’ commandment to love was not about feeling warm and fuzzy with each other. It is about a way of life of self-giving. But it isn’t just about self-giving. It’s about give-and-take giving in Christian community—as well as in the world.
1 John 4:7-10
Our reading from 1 John continues the theme from last week and offers a slightly different angle on the question “How do we practice Christian love?” It was written when combinations of time, divisive preachers, human nature, and persecution put Christian communities in danger of self-destruction.
All through this chapter John says what Jesus said: Love one another. Love comes from the Father through Jesus. We love because we have been loved and saved from our sins—the evil within us and done by us. We now love to extend that love to others—who are to become our friends. We cannot hate those who disagree with us. We are brothers and sisters in Christ.
Still, how do I specifically apply that in my life? How do I have the courage and strength?
Acts 10: 25-26, 34-25, 44-48
These outline verses are from the fuller story told in Acts 10. The full story begins with Peter praying on the rooftop waiting for dinner. He’s hungry. He has a vision of a sheet of all kinds of animals to eat. God says to him, “Eat.” Peter says, “No, these are unclean animals” (animals forbidden to be eaten by Jewish law) God then tells Peter, “What God has purified you are not to call unclean.” Meanwhile, Cornelius, a Roman centurion who had been kind to the Jews and who lived a moral life, also had a vision in which he was told to send for Peter. Peter came, preached, and the Holy Spirit descended on Cornelius and his household. That was enough evidence that the visions were truly of God, and the people were baptized.
Following Jesus thus moved from Jewish sect to new religion.
Back to the Book
So how does a chapter on the Eucharist clarify the question? It says what perhaps I have let slip from the front of my consciousness. Fr. Kurt gives a simple, clean explanation of Gathering and the Liturgy of the Word. Then he focuses on the role of offering in the Eucharistic Prayers. He quotes the GIRM (General Instruction for the Roman Missal):
“The priest invites the people to lift up their hearts to the Lord in prayer and thanksgiving; he unites the congregation with himself in the prayer that he addresses in the name of the entire community to God the Father through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, the meaning of the Prayer is that the entire congregation of the faithful should join itself with Christ in confessing the great deeds of God and in the offering of Sacrifice.” (GIRM, 78)
As the mass moves to the Memorial Acclamation (“Dying you destroyed our death, rising you restore our life” or a similar phrase),
“The Church’s intention…is that the faithful not only offer this spotless Victim but also learn to offer themselves, and so day by day to be consummated, through Christ the Mediator, into unity with God and with each other, so that at last God may be all in all.” (GIRM, 79, following)
Maybe God just meant for me to read this to put my mind and soul at rest, but perhaps it will also speak to you. It has disturbed me that the US bishops instituted a Eucharistic Renewal when Pope Francis had called for the world to re-study the documents of Vatican II. But how glorious and wonderful are the ways of God!
Both paths lead to how we practice loving God and loving others: joining ourselves in the mass with Jesus as he lays down his life for his friends AGAIN in our parish on our altar with us present, joining ourselves in the process with priest and people around us, so that WE ALSO lay down our lives for our friends…and our friends are everybody, for “God wills that all men be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.” (1 Timothy 2:4)
How do we love? We LIVE the mass. Living the mass gives us the capacity to love all our neighbors in ways that maintain goodness of intention, object, and means. If we apply it carefully, I believe it will give us the same level of answer God gave Peter at Cornelius’ house: struggle through the questions, speak the Truth of Christ, watch for the Holy Spirit, follow the Holy Spirit to discern, then, over time, work through the many complexities to do what Vatican II intended: “That all might be saved.”
Prayer:
As we move toward Pentecost in two weeks, “Come, Holy Spirit, renew the hearts of the faithful. Enkindle in us the power of your Love. And we shall be created and renew the face of the earth.”
