Are you bold and public about expressing your Catholic faith? Or are you quiet and low key? Do you want to think carefully about what you are going to say in a sticky situation? Or do you trust the Holy Spirit to give you the words?
Is your copy of the Catechism all marked up, because you want to make sure you have the details of faith correct? Or do you focus on knowing and loving Jesus Christ and let the details fall where they may?
Today’s readings tell us: Whichever describes you–it doesn’t matter. This is an either-or. God depends on you either way.
Peter and John
In today’s first reading Peter and John have been bold and public about expressing their faith. They trusted the Holy Spirit to give them words and power—with the lame man by the Beautiful Gate, with the Sanhedrin, and with the disciples who had been praying for them.
The story of healing the man “at the gate called Beautiful” has been a favorite of mine since college. Peter and John are walking along. A beggar asks for a coin. “Silver and gold have we none, but, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk.” Peter extends his hand. The man grabs it, Peter pulls him up and—the man walks.
Probably success in life if you are a beggar depends on being bold, asking, getting excited—people skills. Well, this man had lots of people skills. Like Peter, he was an extrovert and he started telling EVERYBODY. He walked and leaped—and generally got Peter and John in trouble with the Sanhedrin.
The Sanhedrin warned them NOT to speak about the risen Jesus, but Peter and John replied, “It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard.” In today’s reading, as they returned to other followers of “The Way,” all the people there rejoiced in the proclamation, were filled with the Holy Spirit, so much so they “shook the house.”
Wow!
Nicodemus
On the other hand, the Gospel tells us about Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a member of that Sanhedrin that scolded Peter and John. He was also the one who brought ointment and anointed Jesus’ body when he was taken down from the cross. But the reading today takes place 3 years earlier. Jesus has done the miracle of Cana. He has cast out the money changers from the temple. But, generally, Jesus was as unknown to the Jewish leaders at this time, as Peter and John were when they healed the lame man. Yet, there is something attractive about Jesus, and Nicodemus is drawn to him. On the other hand, Nicodemus wants to be careful. He makes deliberate decisions, not rash ones. He comes to Jesus by night, to find out more. Jesus tells him, “You must be born from above.” There must be a spiritual rebirth to give a new spiritual life. Nicodemus listens, and must have considered Jesus carefully each time Jesus returned to Jerusalem.
Nicodemus never left the Sanhedrin to follow Jesus. But he was there, quiet, careful fellow that he was, when Jesus needed him on Good Friday.
Nicodemus, the quiet, hesitant one. God used him, too. His actions make a good case for seeing him as filled with the Holy Spirit, too.
Extroverted apostles on fire for Jesus or introverted Pharisee thinking carefully. Either-or. God uses them both.
Born from Above
Thomas Merton used the story of Nicodemus to talk about the need for each of us to be “born from above.” To Merton, being born from above meant discovering and becoming your “true self.” This is the person God created you to be: filled with Christ—yet still you. Matthew Kelly calls it “the best version of yourself.” Merton found this in prayer. Mother Teresa found it in serving the poorest of the poor. Many a parent has found it in motherhood or fatherhood. It happens when a person’s gifts are freely given to God and used by God.
That makes it sound like “being born from above” is something special, unusual—for saints. But Jesus’ words to Nicodemus indicate it is meant for ALL of us:
“Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless one is born of water and Spirit
he cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
What is born of flesh is flesh
and what is born of spirit is spirit.”
Merton goes on to say, “To be born again is to be born beyond egoism, beyond selfishness, beyond individuality, in Christ….The rebirth of which Christ speaks is not a single event but a continuous dynamic of inner renewal. Certainly, sacramental baptism, the ‘birth by water,’ can be given only once. But birth in the Spirit happens many times in a man’s life, as he passes through successive stages of spiritual development…True Christianity is growth in the life of the Spirit, a deepening of the new life, a continuous rebirth, in which the exterior and superficial life of the ego-self is discarded like an old snake skin and the mysterious, invisible self of the Spirit becomes more present and more active. (quoted in Thomas Merton, Essential Writings, p 66-67)
John Ciribassi spoke beautifully about this on Saturday in his reflection.
The Goodness of Either-Or
As we develop through childhood and adulthood, we learn to be social beings. This is good. It helps us live with others. But manners, niceties, good habits, etc are about “the flesh.” Our deeper self, often hidden even from ourselves, is the self that must be born from above. Although there are many opinions about how spiritually that might happen, Merton’s short list of “egoism, selfishness, and individuality” strike me as a good place to start. They must be filled with Christ.
As we continue to rejoice in Easter and begin to emerge from COVID, it is a good time to consider: if I offer my egoism, selfishness, and individuality to God every morning—as well as my thoughts, words, and acts of the day—how might the Spirit re-create me? What might a “Christ to the core” me be like?
Prayer:
Lord, the signs are that You are rearranging my life in numerous ways as I emerge from COVID seclusion. Rearrange my ego, selfishness, and even my claims to individuality (that one’s hard to give You, Lord), even as You rearrange how I spend my time. You made me, Lord. I give You this piece of clay I call myself. In personality, I’m like Nicodemus, but form me like Peter and John in generosity, even as you keep me my introverted, got-to-plan self. Either-or, some of both–form me like You.
