Thursday, August 11, 2022
Memorial of Saint Clare, Virgin
           (click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
In the school of the Holy Spirit
In anger his master handed him over to the torturers until he should pay back his whole debt. So will my heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you forgives his brother from his heart.
Saint Clare, best friend of Francis of Assisi, had much to forgive. Her father and brothers did violence to all around her, determined to drag her home from her chosen life alone with God. She clung to the altar and would not leave.
Obeying God sometimes involves disobeying men, even parents. But not always, perhaps not even often. Jacques Phillippe has written several small books, including In the School of the Holy Spirit.
Of course we must obey God rather than men, but it would be an illusion to think we were capable of obeying God if we are incapable of obeying other people. The reason for this is that the same obstacle has to be overcome in both cases: attachment to ourselves and to our own will. If we can only obey people when it happens to please us, we are fooling ourselves about being able to obey the Holy Spirit. If we are never prepared to renounce our own will (our ideas, our tastes, our attachments) for other people, what guarantee is there that we’ll be able to do so when God asks us to? (p. 32)
Must we even sometimes forgive God? God allows evil when I want to crush the evildoer. God’s patience with others, and with myself, extends far beyond what I think of as appropriate. I’m grateful, and frustrated, all at once. Better that we be “handed over to the torturers until we pay back the whole debt.” OK, God, practice what you preach.
But then how could I earn what I need to pay it back?
God intends his grace and forgiveness to be my teachers, as well as my salvation. Learn from the best, and do likewise. A few willing students, adopting this skill, change the world around them.
Son of man, you live in the midst of a rebellious house; they have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear … while they look on, dig a hole in the wall and pass through it; while they look on, shoulder your burden and set out in the darkness; cover your face that you may not see the land, for I have made a sign for the house of Israel.
Could Ezekiel make a difference? I think so. At least he prepared some of the people for their impending exile. God was pleased with his obedience, even as the house of Israel as a whole was “rebellious.”
And even as God was using him as a “sign,” Ezekiel was learning obedience to the God who did not destroy the rebels. God’s vision is not limited by present evil. He does not allow his anger to rip and tear. Always there is the hope for future repentance. Jacques Phillippe calls our response to this “obedience to events.”
We are not being asked to consent to evil, but to consent to the mysterious wisdom of God who permits evil. Our consent is not a compromise with evil but the expression of our trust that God is stronger than evil. This is a form of obedience that is painful but very fruitful. (p. 33)
Reading today’s Psalm 78 I wonder if I’m wrong about God’s long-suffering:
God abandoned his people to the sword and was enraged against his inheritance. Do not forget the works of the Lord!
Both messages, of unconditional grace and God’s anger acted-out, pour pell-mell out of the Bible. Richard Rohr quotes Thomas Aquinas who said, “Whatever is received, is received according to the mode of the receiver.” (Naked Now, appendix 1) But it never seems right to ignore certain stories and put others on a pedestal.
What is truth? Pursuing tentative answers to this question is a requirement for human life. Jacques Philippe’s book In the School of the Holy Spirit helps. It gives me tools and direction.
(Ezekiel 12, Psalm 78, Psalm 119, Matthew 18)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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