SACRED PERSONHOOD
I want to take “courage” as a theme again. Courage is required, because as St. Augustine said, it’s the “irrefutable sign of the existence and power of evil in the world”. [Josef Pieper. “The Obscurity of Hope and Despair” JOSEF PIEPER, AN ANTHOLOGY. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989. 25. Print.] If we are confident in saying that a community or nation is courageous, we must be referring to many if not most of its individual members. Hence, we have to believe that the “good” of a nation is—in a mysterious way—representative of the sum of its good people. One is a cause of the other.
The individual in a society is not a mathematical concept nor a sociological phenomenon. He is a human being whose sacred personhood and individuality can be traced to the beginning: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”. [Gen 1:26] God’s image and likeness in humankind was made corrupt when human beings—the story of Adam and Eve—deliberately chose against God and for Satan and sin. Thus the virtue of courage is properly oriented to human creatures whose forebears opened the door to the Great Deceiver and his noxious evils.
TAKE DARING ACTION
The only remedy for humankind’s regeneration is the God-man Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of man. To be restored to God the Father, human beings must conform themselves to the image and likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ. Notwithstanding the great task of individual conversion to holiness, St. Paul writes, “but we have the mind of Christ.” [1Cor 2:16]
Let us put on the mind of Christ and make a great effort to understand where the virtue of courage must lead each of us as individuals. For there are many things that bind Christians together, many things that all of us must put to right, and much to learn about the nature of our spiritual communion. The prophetic words “bear fruit that befits repentance” [Mt 3:8] direct our restless souls to take daring action.
ONE WAY OR THE OTHER
Jesus is knocking at the door of our hearts, and we must make a decision. We hear him knock. We know that he is there. My reference to “heart” is actually a reference to the immortal human soul. Each of us has a unique soul which we may call a “spirit”. But all souls possess two things in common: intellect and will. You have a mind. You may make choices. And having decided one way or the other—this is the certainty of reality—you must accept the consequences.
Very important to remember is the fact that “indifference” to Christ is a choice made against Christ. If you have opened the door to your soul all the way to Christ, then you are among the righteous. If one has closed the door to Christ, salvation from sin and eternal death is not possible. Whatever grace, beauty, splendor, joy and welcome that you wish to inherit for eternity, offer the same now to the Lord Jesus Christ. If your door never opens to Jesus Christ in this life, heaven’s door will not open to you in the next.
WELCOME OR REJECTION
When you open the door, who or what do you see? Do you see a stained-glassed window, a pious thought or idea and invite these in? Hardly. You see a person. His name is Jesus the Anointed One. In his personhood dwells the fullness of humanity and divinity. The one for whom you have been searching stands before you. He is the love of God. He is the truth of God. You have to make a conscious decision. Will you entrust yourself to him? Will you surrender yourself to the “mystery of Christ”? [John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, no. 33 (1998)]
The door to your heart—that is to say, your soul—can be a sign of welcome or it can be a sign of rejection. This is clear to anyone who is honest. Regardless, it is possible to close the door on someone who is trying to go through it, to keep him out altogether or to force the person to fight to get in. This is the great problem. So very many persons open the door of their heart to Jesus and then shut it on him as he’s trying to enter.
DOOR TURNS INWARD
Being a sign of panic and fear, selfishness and pride, closing the door on someone you say you love is a very bad thing. It is a great sadness when people try to invite Jesus the Christ into their hearts, but they slam the door on his Truth. It’s a way of saying to Jesus that he can’t be everything to them that he wants to be and everything that they need. Opening a door to the person but closing it on their own authentic personhood—their reality—in preference to the perceptions of the other, is sinful.
The door to a home opens inward. This is crucial for understanding what makes a relationship with Jesus Christ meaningful. You have to open the door to him. He’s not going to barge in, still less force the door open. If you don’t open it, it’s not going to open. No one opens the door to a guest, someone they know and like, and fails to welcome him. It is a great sadness when a person joyfully invite Jesus to enter through the door of their hearts—their souls—only to have the light in them grow dim.
ANAGRAM OF SILENT
You stop talking to him. You treat him as if he were not there. You put him in a corner, not talking to him, never giving his majesty your complete surrender and obedience. One thing needs to be said. Jesus will not make his home in a cold, indifferent and gloomy heart. Recall that our Lord said that he wants to eat with you and you with him. Thus we know the challenging truth that is placed between the creator and the creature. Recall that Our Lord once told his apostles, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work.” [Jn 4:34]
Accordingly, prepare a great feast for him of faith, hope and love that is pure. And when you enter into conversation with Our Lord in the depths of your heart—we call this prayer—do not do all the talking. Keep your silence that God himself may receive your faith in him and reveal his will for you. It is not mere coincidence that listen is an anagram of silent!
WINDOW FOR CHRIST’S GLORY
Don’t hide anything from Jesus. He already knows everything about you, including your very thoughts. The words God knows! God knows! express very well our Savior’s power to read hearts. When you invite Jesus Christ into your life, you can’t go around shutting interior doors, the doors that hide the things you’ve not been honest about, things for which you have not repented, things that you’ve not confessed. There is no deceit between human beings or directed against the Lord that is not sinful.
We speak of Jesus’ glory for good reason. Whereas exterior human activity is made possible by illumination, the interior activity of souls is revealed by God’s glory. Open your mind and heart to the glory of Christ! Let his radiance shine in every thought and activity of your life. Every thought, every word, every deed should be a window through which the glory of Christ shines. Thus all persons will know that “you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you”. [1Cor 3:16]
MERCY, PEACE, JUSTICE
Jesus never knocks at the door with empty hands. He is always bearing the gifts that pour from his love. When you open the door to your soul to invite him in, what gifts may you expect? He will help you to see things as they really are. He will help you to examine your conscience. He will give you the gift of genuine sorrow for being sinful and committing sins against God and others.
When he comes in your heart, he will not fail to bring you the gift of his life-changing mercy—the pardon you’ve always desired, the pardon you need when you confess your sins. Then he will bestow on you and your household the gift of his peace. If you accept his peace—the peace which only he can give [Jn 14:27; THE ROMAN MISSAL Communion Rite 127 (Sign of Peace)]—then, and only then will he reveal his justice to you—that is to say, giving to you all the good that God his Father desires for you.
A SOFTER KNOCK
Then you are empowered to open your heart to others, first and foremost for the express purpose of leading them to Christ to enjoy their proper share in the fullness of our Lord’s abundant kingdom. Together we may entreat:
. . . THE GOD of steadfastness and encouragement (to) grant (us) to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together (we) may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. [Rom 15:5-6]
It is not for nothing that we know Jesus as the bridegroom. This is very clear from his own words [Mk 2:19] and from visionary John’s Book of Revelation [Rev 18:23]. Obviously a groom has a bride, and the bride of Christ is the Church. When you hear Jesus knocking at the door of your heart, you must understand that very soon you will hear another knock, one a little softer perhaps, but nonetheless purposeful. The Bride of Christ—Holy Mother Church—knocks too, desiring to enter in and join her groom.
WHERE THE BRIDE IS
You cannot invite the divine bridegroom inside and fail to answer the door when his bride knocks. Jesus will be where the bride is and no other place. This is only common sense. If you reject the bride of a groom, you are by that fact rejecting the groom. Attempting such a thing is very foolish. I assure you that whoever rejects the Church has rejected Christ himself, no matter how devout their external practices may appear. No one can go it alone in Christ. That is why Jesus is knocking on the door of every heart:
LET US hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. [Heb 10:23-25]
STARVING BEHIND A LOCKED DOOR
There’s always a risk, isn’t there? You’re standing on the inside, secure for the moment with your material goods and the exercise of your human powers. You’re afraid that things will change for you. You’re afraid that Jesus will make you into something you’re not. You’re afraid of the work involved. You’re afraid of what you’ll have to give up.
You’re afraid of new unseen things. You prefer the brokenness of the world over the holy perfection of God’s eternity. Over all this, you take as your food doubt and gloom and you starve existentially behind a locked door—while Jesus is outside, patiently waiting with a banquet of “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”. [Rom 14:7] Our Lord Jesus Christ says,
THOSE WHOM I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. He who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'” [Rev 3:19-22]
CHANGE THINGS IN YOUR LIVES
Our Lord wants a heart that is lively with faith. He wants a heart that has grounds for hope and is not afraid of tomorrow’s graces and blessings. He humbly calls every man, woman and child to a genuine hope—far beyond the futility of their own human powers—in him alone. He wants a heart that is not afraid to love him first and thereafter all others in him. You hear the knock. You hear it again. It is not going away. Now who will get up and answer the knock at the door? Who wants to live life abundantly, now and for eternity? Who will permit the author of life and salvation to enter?
Who will welcome him? Will it be you? As I have before, I urge you with all my heart to change things in your lives, to let go of all that is dead, to embrace and accept all that is alive in Christ. Let us resolve together to let go of our human pride, our numbing indifference to the things that matter, and to remember always people who are poor and crushed under the weight of their circumstances.
REACH OUT, REACH UP
God’s call to his people is unmistakable. There is still time for every person to collaborate with Christ for his own realization, “to his own, truly human existence”. Don’t “(barricade yourself) against the challenge handed to (you) by (your) own dignity”. [JOSEF PIEPER. “The Obscurity of Hope and Despair” AN ANTHOLOGY. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1989. 23. Print.] There is still time to “walk in the light, as (Christ) is in the light” [1Jn 1:7].
Let us therefore: 1.) examine our consciences and lives, 2.) purify ourselves through the Sacraments, and 3.) draw closer to God in love and service. Reach out to one another in love and in kindness. Reach up to God in adoration and in fidelity. Realize that your Christian faith must be personal, intimate and filled with the “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” of God’s Holy Spirit.
EYES FIXED ON THAT DAY
Courage is required. A society may be said to be “courageous” only to the extent that its members are themselves courageous — therefore, men and women of good will must be courageous. Open your hearts to Jesus Christ in this season of Advent.
Pledge your obedience first to Christ and his Church, with prudence to lawful authorities that submit to his kingship and finally: never submit to “the principalities, the powers, the world rulers of this present darkness, or the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places”. [Eph 6:12] Keep your eyes always fixed on that day of the Lord’s coming in glory, “for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea”. [Isa 11:9]
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