Tuesday, September 13, 2022
Memorial of Saint John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Getting to know you
The world is full of people I don’t know personally and never will. So when they have problems, I don’t feel much, not like I feel if something happens to my son or daughter or wife. Of course not. Feeling have limited use in our lives; as often as they guide us well, they decoy us and pull us down a wrong road.
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body are one body, so also Christ. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one Body, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
And that’s true whether I know you or not, and whether I feel emotions about your joy or sorrow … or not. We are all one body. So also Christ. We drink from the same Spirit cup.
Sometimes I choose not to get to know someone just so I won’t be hurt by them, or worry about them when they’re in trouble. Not my friend, not my problem. Really?
Relatives of course are harder to avoid, and so I generally don’t. They matter to me, as I matter to them. We show up at each other’s funerals. And we care, we feel good or bad, we worry and we rejoice at news from relatives.
A great prophet has arisen in our midst and God has visited his people.
Jesus broke all the rules about getting to know other people. He actually turned his relatives away, probably more than once. Following him to find the Abba Father mattered more than any blood kinship made on earth. But although relatives weren’t so important to him perhaps, everyone was. (Including his relatives, of course.)
A man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. A large crowd was with her. When Jesus saw her, he was moved with pity. “Do not weep,” he said. He touched the coffin and said, “Young man, I tell you, arise!” And the dead man sat up and began to speak.
Each time I turn aside when someone’s in pain, I think I do the opposite of what Jesus did, and what Jesus wants from me. I can’t raise a person from his coffin, but God can. But surely it’s a good idea if I try. I can’t do God’s work, because God is God and I am not, but I can become involved in the lives of strangers.
We don’t do that much, do we? Our cars, our apartments, our homes, our jobs with their personal paychecks, and our fears … all of it conspires to keep us apart.
Joe Zarantonello, whose Loose Leaf Hollow retreat center celebrates Thomas Merton’s life just a few miles from where Merton lived (at the Abbey of Gethsemani near Bardstown, Kentucky), wrote about an antidote:
A Way to Heal the World
Nothing can hurt you if you understand
that whatever you are going through
is your invitation
to participate in the healing of the world.
Meditation is a journey in which
you take everyone with you —
friends, enemies,
and billions of folks you have never met.
Your meditation is the kind of prayer
that is not specific, but rather
includes everyone —
past, present and to come.
Sitting in silence with this intention
is reinforcing the basic truth of
interconnectedness
of all humans with the whole of creation.
In meditation everything belongs to you
and you belong to everything.
Sorrow shared
is halved; and joy shared is doubled.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Know that the Lord is God; he made us, his we are. Enter his gates together with thanksgiving, for he is God, and his kindness endures forever.
Doors open when we say “yes” to each other. When they close again, IF they close again, we must give over responsibility to God. But always it’s good for us to start out with, YES.
(1 Corinthians 12, Psalm 100, Luke 7)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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