Falling in Love makes all the difference

Recently I found this prayer fixed to a bulletin board at the back of the Church:

Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.

What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination,
will affect everything.

It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, 
whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.

Fall in Love, 
stay in love,
and it will decide everything.

This prayer is attributed to Fr. Pedro Arrupe S.J. (1907 - 1991). Prior to becoming the Superior General of the Society of Jesus (a.k.a. The Jesuits, the religious community of which Pope Francis is a member), Fr. Arrupe was a missionary, serving for many years in Japan. Incredibly, he was living in suburban Hiroshima when the city was devastated by an atomic bomb on August 6th, 1945. Though Fr. Arrupe and seven other Jesuits were within the blast zone, they all survived.

I first read Fr. Arrupe's prayer several years ago while on a month-long retreat in Mexico led by another Jesuit, this one spent the majority of his life serving in India. Since then I have loved this prayer. It always reminds me that Christianity is not, in the end, about ideas or even a way of acting but primarily about a relationship with Jesus. As Pope Benedict wrote:
Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. (Deus Caritas Est, 1)

I want my relationship with Jesus transforms all areas of my life. I can become discouraged when I see that this is not the case. I take great hope from Fr. Arrupe's prayer. It encourages me to focus on the most important thing. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything.

The most important day of your life


What is the most important day of your life? Maybe it was the day you were born or the day you got married. Normally we celebrate these life changing events every year. We all celebrate our birthday year after year even though we become less straightforward with how old we are with each passing birthday. Married couples celebrate their anniversary yearly, even if husbands need the occasional reminder. We tend to celebrate the most important days in our life. Here’s a question: do you know the date of your baptism? Today we celebrate the Baptism of Jesus. It is a perfect opportunity to both look at the significance of this event and remind ourselves of the importance of our own baptism. 

It can be very difficult to understand why Jesus was baptized. Try to picture this scene for a moment. You are in the desert, beside the river Jordan. You are surrounded on all sides by a great mass of people. One by one each person enters the river and approaches John the Baptist who immerses them into the water. What are these people doing? They have come to accept John’s baptism of repentance. In being baptized they are publically acknowledging that they are sinners. More than this, they are making the choice to change their ways and choose a new path for the future. How can Jesus be among this crowd? How can Jesus, who is without sin, repent? John the Baptist seems to grasp the problem and tries to prevent Jesus from being baptized, saying, “I need to be baptized by you and yet you are coming to me?”  At first glance it does not make any sense of Christ to be baptized by John the Baptist. 

The Baptism of Jesus makes sense when we begin to see it in the light of the Cross and Resurrection. Many of you will know that a few years ago, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote a wonderful book on Jesus of Nazareth. There he tackled the question of the significance of Jesus’ baptism. He explained it this way:
Looking at the event [of Jesus’ baptism] in light of the Cross and Resurrection, the Christian people realized what happened: Jesus loaded the burden of all mankind's guilt upon his shoulders; he bore it down into the depths of the Jordan. He inaugurated his public activity by stepping into the place of sinners. His inaugural gesture is an anticipation of the Cross.
Simply put, Jesus did not get baptized for Himself but for us. At His baptism, Jesus is embarking on His mission as the “Suffering Servant” who reconciles mankind to God, which we read about in the first letter from the prophet Isaiah. At His baptism, He took our sins on Himself and descended into the water, which is symbolic of His death. Afterwards He came out of the water – a symbol of the resurrection – He left behind our sins in the Jordan. The significance of Jesus’ baptism comes into focus when we view it through the lens of His Cross and Resurrection. 

When looked at this way, we better appreciate the fact that the Baptism of Jesus completes Christmas. It is with good reason that today’s feast concludes the Christmas season. Among the Doctors of the Church there is a famous expression used to describe the purpose of the Incarnation that says: “God became man to make men like God”. St. Thomas Aquinas expressed it this way:
The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.
The first part of this phrase, which speaks about God assuming our human nature, happened with the conception and later birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. The second part of the phrase, which speaks about us becoming like God, was made possible in large part by the Baptism of Jesus. Because Jesus was baptized, our own baptism has force and power. As one ancient theologian wrote:
For when the Saviour is washed all water for our baptism is made clean, purified at its source for the dispensing of baptismal grace to the people of future ages. (St. Maximus of Turin)
Our baptism is precisely the moment in our life when we “become like God”. At our baptism:
  1. We are grafted onto Jesus Christ
  2. We are filled with grace, the very life of God
  3. We receive the gift of the Holy Spirit
  4. We become forever a beloved Son or Daughter of God

God became man so that man could become like God. The baptism of Jesus is like the completion of Christmas.


Because our baptism is such a life-changing event, it is something that we should remember and celebrate. We all tend to celebrate well a baptism on the actual day of the event. Baptisms are usually accompanied by a big party and everybody gets dressed up – particularly the person getting baptized. A few years ago I spent some time in Tijuana, Mexico. In the chapels that I would visit, the people always had such beautiful celebrations for baptism, even though they did not have much money. In particular I remember vividly how one young boy was dressed at his baptism. He was of course dressed all in white, but his clothes were remarkable. He wore a small white tuxedo, complete with bow-tie. On the back of his tuxedo was embroidered in gold the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. He was even wearing white shoes with a silver decal of the Holy Spirit on them. The parents of this young boy definitely realized that something important was happening to their son at his baptism. Though we celebrate baptism on the day of the event, most of us probably do not remember and celebrate our own baptism as we would our birthday or wedding anniversary. I admit that while preparing this homily, I had to look up the day that I was baptized. Pope Francis has encouraged us to remember our baptism day and celebrate it each year. If we don’t, he said “we end up considering it merely as an event that took place in the past – and not even by our will, but rather by that of our parents.” Our baptism was one of the most important days of our life, it is the day that we became forever a beloved son or daughter or God. This is something we need to remember and celebrate.

Today, as is the custom of the Popes on the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, Pope Francis will baptize several children in the Sistine Chapel. Our own baptism, though not in such an incredible setting, is no less important. Today, I challenge each of us to follow the advice of Pope Francis by trying to celebrate in some way each year the day of our baptism. If you don’t know this day, find it out and write it in your calendar. We should never forget this life-changing day in which we were grafted onto Jesus and forever became a beloved son or daughter of God.


The priesthood, one month in


As of today I have been a priest for a month. The past month has flown by! It has been a month of many blessings as well as new things to get used to: a new parish, celebrating Mass, hearing confessions and having people call me “Father”.  Providentially, I had the opportunity to hear a great talk today that got me reflecting on what it means to be a priest. Today many of the priests of the Archdiocese of Vancouver had the opportunity to hear Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa speak. Since 1980, Fr. Cantalamessa has been the Preacher to the Papal Household. In this role, he preaches to the Pope and other high-ranking officials each Friday during Lent and Advent. Two words struck me from Fr. Cantalamessa’s talk: love and gift. These words seem to be at the core of what it means to be a priest and minister to people today.

Love
The starting point is God’s personal love for each one of us. Fr. Cantalamessa reminded us of Pope Benedict’s Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est. In this, Pope Benedict emphasized that God’s love is both agape and eros.  The latter is important to remember. God’s love is not some distant thing; He is drawn to us. Likewise, Fr. Cantalamessa explained that our love for God must be both agape and eros. We certainly must be willing to make sacrifices for God (agape), but at the same time we must be enchanted by Jesus and drawn to Him (eros). We are called to be friends of Jesus, not just His spokesmen. This was a great reminder for me one month into my priesthood. I need to remember that the primary thing for me is to love and follow after Jesus. Deepening my personal relationship with Jesus must be my primary concern.


Gift
Fr. Cantalamessa explained that there is a great difference between Christianity and other religions. He said that every other religion begins by telling its adherence what to do. “If you want to be saved, you must do this” and “if you wish to obtain enlightenment you must do that.” In other words, duties come first. In Christianity, on the other hand, duties – though important – come second. Christianity begins by telling us what God has done for us to save us. Christianity begins with gift rather than duty. In Christianity, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit – the very love of God – who allows us to do joyfully what is commanded. Fr. Cantalamessa quoted St. Augustine on this:
The law was given so grace we would seek. Grace was given that the law we might keep.
While listening to this, I was reminded of the fact that the priesthood is first and foremost an incredible gift! I have a tendency to get caught up with duties, the things that I must do in the day. At its core, however, I do believe that priesthood is the incredible gift of a unique way of following and relating to Jesus.

Preaching Love and Gift
Fr. Cantalamessa argued that in our preaching we need to imitate the example of St. Peter found in Acts 2:14ff. Our situation today is in many ways similar to the times of the apostles. Then, they were preaching to a pre-Christian world. Today we are preaching to a post-Christian world.  If we follow their example, we can succeed in changing the world, just as they did. St. Peter, newly filled with the Holy Spirit, begins by telling people about love and gift and not about duties. He begins by telling the people the good things that God has worked for them through Jesus: Jesus Christ died for our sins. This is the kerygma, or “the cry”. Fr. Cantalamessa explained that this is what Pope Francis is doing. He is starting be telling people about the love and gifts that God has given us in Christ. This is the primary thing, duties and commandments come second. To be able to preach in this way, we must first accept, more and more, Jesus as our own Lord and Messiah. Saying that Jesus is Lord, is a decision. It is saying to Jesus, “I joyfully submit myself to you.” When we preach the kerygma, then, we are able to call others to make the decision to accept Jesus as their Lord.

Fr. Cantalamessa finished with a powerful image. He explained that the painting “The Scream”, by Edvard Munch, has become something of a symbol for our modern culture that is often atheistic and materialistic, looking at our current existence as the only reality. The scream in the painting expresses how we are often lost with nowhere to look. It expresses the anguish of heart that has lost a sense of deeper purpose and hope. In the face of this scream, we are called to proclaim the cry of the kerygma, the good news that speaks of hope, gift and love: God in His love for us has given us the gift of Jesus who has died for our sins. Fr. Cantalamessa explained that we must somehow make the cry of the kerygma the foundation of all our preaching – definitely a challenge for the future!

Finally, in this short month as a priest, I have tasted something of the truth with which Fr. Cantalamessa ended his talk: there is no greater way to spend your life than serving Jesus and having Him as your friend!