ATTITUDE OF COMPASSION
1. The Decalogue is the face of God’s justice.
The Beatitudes are the face of God’s love. On the one hand, divine justice is
synonymous with altitude—the ascent of man on the narrow and hard path that leads to life. [cf. Mt 7:13-14] The Holy
One of Israel [Isa 10:20] calls his human creation to a holy way of
life: “For I am the Lord your God;
consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” [Lev 11:44]
2. On the other hand, divine love is
correspondent to an disposition or attitude to compassion, the length and breadth which our gracious God will traverse to rescue fallen man. Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep clearly is a story of
beatitude:
WHAT DO you think? If a
man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the
ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?
AND IF he finds it,
truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that
never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one
of these little ones should perish. [Mt
18:12-14]
GEOGRAPHY OF DISTRESS
3. The lamb, having gone astray, is incapable of
scaling heights and attaining expectations. Weak and helpless apart from the
shepherd’s vigilant care, it falls into perilous circumstances. The shepherd
leaves his flock on the mountains—emblematic of loftiness and stature, struggle
and accomplishment—and searches, not in obvious or comfortable places but in
the geography of distress and darkness.
4. When searching for the lost sheep, the shepherd
looks beyond pasture to wilderness. Hills give way to crevices. A
single sheep, alone and disoriented, attracts the predator. Many of us remember
the familiar illustrations of the parable of the lost sheep—the shepherd
leaning far down into a dark ravine of briars, uses the crook of his staff to
grasp the lamb.
SIN OF POWERFUL MEN
5. The human soul is a vast and uncharted realm.
Many persons refuse to explore the soul that God has given them. They may think
it irrelevant to the attractions of a material world or that its formidable
topography is benign and impervious to injury. How easy it is to fall out of
green pastures into a terrifying wilderness! Abandon the shepherd and embrace
the sin! With one lesser wrong decision piling up on another, the human person is
impelled toward evil consequences which he neither grasps or intended from the
beginning.
6. Not consciously choosing evil for its own
sake, man nevertheless mystifyingly chooses to do the wrong in the mistaken
hope that good will come from it. He hopes that the possibility of proximate
good will absolve him—not his soul, for he is ignorant of this, but his disturbing
memories. Ignorant of his soul, he
possesses neither conscious awareness of it or the vocabulary to speak about
it. He is deaf to the groanings of his battered, neglected conscience.
7. Powerful men scorn the sovereignty of God,
hence giving to the innocent and helpless what they are due in God’s eyes.
Hence, the innocent person may despair of God’s deliverance, which is to say,
his mercy. The sin of powerful men therefore is great, for added to their
provocations against God’s mercy is an egregious contempt for the divine image and
likeness intrinsic in the human personhood of those whom they exploit: “Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard,
they have trampled down my portion, they have made my pleasant portion a
desolate wilderness.” [Jer 10:10]
AMBASSADORS OF SUFFERING
8. In the synagogue of
Nazareth, Jesus stands to
read. Given the Book of Isaiah, he purposefully selects a passage announcing
the overthrow of deeply rooted theo-cultural archetypes in Israel. [Lk 4:16-21]
Moreover, he bears the Spirit of
the Lord [cf. Lk 4:18] not the glare of a self-indulgent cynosure. Jesus
is a man set apart to minister to a people who have forgotten why God chose
them.
9. Jesus, the “Son of the most high God” [Mk 5:7], declares that he is the fulfillment
of God’s favor for his chosen who are most
low. He will preach the good news to the poor. The captives he will
liberate. The blind he will enable to see. The oppressed he will lift up. To
these and the multitude for whom they are the ambassadors of suffering, Our
Lord declares the acceptable year [cf. Lk 4:16-30] of mercy, the emergence of God’s true kingdom
in their midst.
FIXATION ON ANCESTRY
10. Thus, the year
of the Lord’s favor [Isa 61:2] is the ascendancy of compassion, the
anomalous reign of the mendicant good shepherd whose kingdom of commoners is
rich in suffering. This face of God will confound the powerful who bristle at
the Lord’s apparent irregularity, who flee his goodness as the guilty shrink
from the truth. Jesus finished the Isaiah passage. His hearers are electrified.
They approve of his gracious message—”today this scripture has fulfilled in your
hearing” [Lk 4:21]—and at least
initially his surprising interpretation.
11. Their intuition, amazingly, does not lead
them to enlightenment. They cannot fathom that the Kingdom of God has overtaken
them. Moreover, their obstinate fixation on ancestry--”Is this not Joseph’s
son?” [Lk 4:22]--prevents them from
accepting the Lord’s new revelation, that he is Lord over all lords and King
over all kings. Their obstinacy drives them to assault the Son of God,
intending to throw him headlong over the brow of their dogmatic provincialism. They
will know Jesus from Nazareth reductively as a notorious pretender.
UNIQUELY QUALIFIED
12. His disciples, however, know him as the
Word-Made-Flesh “full of grace and truth”.
[Jn1:14] He is not from just
anywhere but of everywhere—the Kingdom of
God. “And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace” [Jn 1:16]
“. . . and he is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but
also for the sins of the whole world”.
[1Jn 2:2] Therefore, Jesus is uniquely qualified to call to
himself “all who labor and are heavy laden”. [Mt 11:28]
And who groans under the rod of
his oppressor [cf. Isa 9:4] if not the man whose spirit is impoverished
by sin? Who “weeps bitterly in the night, tears on her cheeks; among all her
lovers” [Lam 1:2] but one who has never known true love’s
constancy? How will the lowly rejoice in justice if the Lord does not “decide
with equity for the meek of the earth”?
[Isa 11:4] To the righteous, will
not the Lord offer the food of peace
and the drink of quietness and trust? [cf. Isa 32:17]
13. Can the Lord forget his “spirit of compassion
and supplication” upon the merciful? They shall “weep bitterly over him, as one
weeps over a first-born”. [Zech 12:10]
To the pure in heart who love God
more than their own souls, the Lord will reveal his heart in a covenant of high places. [cf. Deu 32:13] And with whom will the Lord make the “covenant
of a perpetual priesthood” [Num
25:12-13] but the peacemaker, jealous for his God and assiduous in
atonement? To the holy ones who are
harassed for the cause of right and for the sake of the name of Jesus, the last will be first [cf. Mt 20:16]—can anyone but Christ confer
on them the first fruits of the Spirit,
adoption as sons, and the redemption of (their) bodies? [cf. Rom 8:23]
BANQUET OF TRUTH
14. Many will come to know what the Nazoreans cannot,
that the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled in the person of Jesus, beloved and lovely. [cf. 2Sam 1:23] For this Jesus, the image of the Father’s
glory, will rescue the lost and suffering from their tribulations. Souls need a shepherd to
lead them to green pastures and still waters.
[cf. Psa 23:2] The image of a
shepherd with a lamb draped over his shoulders is instantly recognizable. This
vignette, often ridiculed as saccharine and artless, nevertheless conveys a
compelling beatific message. A powerful, yet benevolent figure rescues a
helpless creature threatened with extinction. The shepherd rejoices as he
returns even a single lamb to the flock. He will reward them for their steadfast endurance in his
name.
15. Formerly, under the Mosaic Law—capable only
of pointing out sin and marking one as deserving of death—every man walked
alone and estranged from communion with the good. He saw the divine light but despaired of reaching
it. His constant companion was inconstancy. He traveled the sorrowful way, its destination
death, the final betrayal of hope. But God had prepared for Israel a new
covenant and a new altar. In the appointed time, he sent his only-begotten Son
as their savior, the great high priest who rules over time and eternity. The
Lord Jesus Christ, whose kingdom is above
this world [cf. Jn 8:23, 18:36], spreads before God’s chosen people a banquet
of truth to banish hunger forever.
ON HIS TABLE
16. On his table is oil for healing their souls;
on his table is wine to restore their weary hearts. Thanks to the sweetness of
the Lord, the children of Abraham discover in Jesus Christ a person in whom
they can entrust their lives:
HE FOUND him in a desert
land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness; he encircled him, he cared
for him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young,
spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions. [Deu 32:10-11]
The doors to mercy’s storehouse
are thrown open to everyone. All those who stand outside the blood of Israel may
be welcomed into the new covenant of Christ’s body and blood. Thus human
expectations are overturned by the power of God’s word. The sparrow, the
partridge and the hen, the raven, the swallow and the pelican, the dove and the
crane have escaped from the snare of the
fowlers. [cf. Psa 124:7]
MANTLE OF FREEDOM
17. The prophet Isaiah instructs his despondent
people to forget the “former things—the things of old”. [Isa 43:18] Not surprisingly, many find it difficult to
let go of suffering, especially if it is a consuming compulsion or the bitter
harvest of systemic evil: “By the waters
of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows
there we hung up our lyres.” [Psa
137:1-2]
18. Let go they must, however, for the Lord has
chosen them as a well-spring of praise. Their deliverance, intended as a
crucial event in Israel’s history, serves a higher purpose—the vanguard of
humankind’s praise of God in the assembly of his people. [2] The Lord will
stretch out his hand over the mighty and drive them back by the breath of his
Spirit, destroying their strongholds of arrogance and power. [cf. Exo 14:21] Then the Lord will establish his Holy Way upon which the weak will be
strengthened, the lame are able to walk, and fearful hearts are made
courageous.
THIS NEW REALITY
19. All will see and hear and speak with the
living God. [cf. Isa 35] The ransomed will drink the saving wine of
the Gospel [cf. Jn 4:10] as a sign that the Kingdom of Heaven has
overtaken them in its splendor—the fulfillment of all consolation, the earth for
their inheritance, the plenitude of righteousness, mercy and revelation. The
ransomed will be called children of God. Even persecution will be overturned,
becoming the seal of blessing, a cause for rejoicing and gladness, and the sign
of elect who are faithful to Christ:
REMEMBER NOT the former
things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it
springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and
rivers in the desert.
THE WILD beasts will
honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I
formed for myself that they might declare my praise. [Isa 43:18-21]
Neither the mighty or
the lowly, the saint or the sinner, are to cling to the past. The old
assumptions of yesterday are dissolved. Nature itself is changed by the
gracious Spirit of Salvation. This new
thing can be believed only if we do not see ourselves as the masters of
life we did not create or a cosmos that did not appear by mere human will.
20. If we acknowledge wholehearted dependence
upon God, the beatitudes—seeds of life and renewal more beautiful to behold
than the storied cedars of Lebanon [cf.
Psa 104:16]—will rise up within us as “oaks of righteousness, the planting of
the Lord, that he may be glorified”. [Isa
61:3] This new reality, then, offers man
a uniquely different and revitalizing perspective in prayer and meditation.
Jesus, “gentle and lowly in heart” [Mt 11:29]
gives us rest and wraps our weary shoulders with the mantle of freedom.
21. The good shepherd invites us to rest within his light and easy embrace. This is the point where God's altitude and man’s attitude converge: “the finite can only be surpassed by moving out into the unfathomable fullness of God”. [3] We who merit nothing have been given everything. The exile of the soul is at an end. The Good Shepherd, in whose perfect being was gathered the fullness of unmerited suffering, died on the cross that all “may have life, and have it abundantly”. [Jn 10:10-11]
21. The good shepherd invites us to rest within his light and easy embrace. This is the point where God's altitude and man’s attitude converge: “the finite can only be surpassed by moving out into the unfathomable fullness of God”. [3] We who merit nothing have been given everything. The exile of the soul is at an end. The Good Shepherd, in whose perfect being was gathered the fullness of unmerited suffering, died on the cross that all “may have life, and have it abundantly”. [Jn 10:10-11]
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[1] Cycle A /Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time /Zeph 2:3;3:12-13 /1Cor 1:26-31 /Mt 5:1-12.
[2] “When the Lord restored
the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled
with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the
nations, The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great
things for us; we are glad. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses
in the Negeb! May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy! He that goes
forth weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.” [Psa
126]
[3] Karl Rahner SJ, “On
the Theology of the Incarnation”, A RAHNER READER, ed. Gerald A. McCool (Seabury Press: NY, 1975) 147.
