This talk was from the 1996 Christ in You series. Our life in Christ is not a means to our own personal ends. It is the way our Father is accomplishing his purposes, rescuing the world from sin and filling it with his glory.
Transcript
This document is a direct transcript of an audio recording, and may contain transcription errors and other minor edits for the sake of clarity.
PAUL: Let me talk about a second . . . a change in perspective.
For some of us, the realization that our individual salvation is really a subplot of a much larger story can be a radical change in perspective. It’s easy to get so excited about the subplot—namely, our salvation—that we forget the larger picture. Because God really has done great things for us, we began to think that is all he is about.
Sometimes, without really realizing what we are doing, we begin to talk as if personal well-being and happiness is what Christianity and life in Christ is all about. We start talking as if the really important thing about service is that it helps me to become a better person. Or instead of talking about the People of Praise as a place where it is possible to love in real and concrete ways, we talk about the People of Praise as a place we can go to to receive love. Similarly, we might find ourselves saying that the community is a great place for my family to prosper, instead of thinking, this is a great place for my family to serve the Lord. Our life in Christ is not a means to our own personal ends. Our life in Christ is the way the Father is accomplishing his purposes: rescuing the world from sin and filling it with his glory, his Word, his wisdom, his Son. With Christ.
If we slide into thinking that Christianity is all about my growing and becoming a better person, we can lose our perspective regarding sin. It becomes simply an impediment to my happiness and my growth as a human being. Sin no longer is an interpersonal reality, an offense against God and neighbor. It loses its character as a trespass, or debt. When we choose to leave our Father’s house, it’s a matter of disloyalty, unfaithfulness. And when we sin against our brethren, we sin against Christ! Because my brother is Christ! So when we grieve for our sins, we should not be grieving that we are less than perfect, or that we have failed to be fully human. We should grieve that we have sinned against Christ.
We can, if we are not careful, get so caught up in trying to improve ourselves that we become isolated from one another. Self-mastery does not unite us. I think this is what the Lord was trying to get at when he gave someone in the Servant Branch the following vision. This person saw people who were like icicles towards one another, cold and unbending. The icicles, however, had wicks at the center, and people were supposed to light one another.
What would this look like? Let me read you a story from The Little Flowers of St. Francis. If you ever want to read a book about the Incarnation, this would be a good one. The whole point of the book is that Francis and his brothers are Christ.
This is about Brother Simon of Assisi and his marvelous life.
In the beginning of our Order, when St. Francis was still living, a certain young man of Assisi joined the order and was called Brother Simon. The Almighty Lord gave him such graces and consolations and raised him to such a degree of contemplation and elevation of mind that his whole life was a mirror of holiness, as I heard from those who were with him for a long time.
He was very rarely seen outside his cell. If he sometimes went among the friars, he was always eager to talk about God. He never had any schooling and he nearly always lived in the woods. And yet he spoke so profoundly and so loftily about God and the love of Christ that his words seemed supernatural. Thus one evening when he went into the woods with Brother James of Massa, to talk about God, they spoke so very sweetly and devoutly about Christ’s love, that they spent the whole night in that conversation. And in the morning it seemed to them that they had been there only a short while, as (he who was with him) told me. . . .
When this Brother Simon would sit down for meals with the friars, before he took any food for the body, he would take and give to his companions some food for the soul by speaking of God. Thus it happened one time that while he was speaking very fervently of God with the friars, a certain young man of San Severino was converted to the Lord. In the world, he had been noble and delicate in constitution and very sensual. But Brother Simon, when he received that young man into the Order and gave him the habit, kept in his charge the secular clothes he had taken off. And the young man stayed with Brother Simon in order to be instructed by him in the religious life. But our enemy the devil, who strives to hinder every good, rushed upon that young man like a roaring lion, and by his evil breath, which sets coals on fire, enkindled within his flesh such burning torments that the boy lost hope of being able to resist so strong a temptation.
Consequently he went to Brother Simon and said to him: “Give me back the clothes I wore in the world, because I can’t stand the strain of this sensual temptation any longer!” But Brother Simon felt great compassion for him and said to him: “Sit down here with me for a moment, my son.” And while Brother Simon was pouring some beautiful words about God into the ears of that boy, he extinguished the flames of lust and took his temptation completely away.
Later, the temptation returned several times, and the youth again asked for his clothes, but Brother Simon drove it away by talking to him about God. Finally one night the temptation attacked him so much more violently than usual that he could not resist it for anything in the world. So he went to Brother Simon and said: “You must give me back my clothes now, because I simply cannot stay any longer!” Then Brother Simon, as a devout father, had compassion on him and said, as he usually did: “Come, son, and sit beside me a while.”
The distraught boy went to Brother Simon and sat down beside him. And while he was talking about God, the boy rested his head on Brother Simon’s chest, because of his melancholy and depression. But Brother Simon, feeling very sorry for him, raised his eyes toward heaven, and while he was praying to God with great devotion and compassion for the young man, he was rapt in an ecstasy, and finally his prayer was granted by God. And when Brother Simon came back to himself, the boy felt that he was completely freed from his temptation, as if he had never experienced it, so that the harmful ardor of the temptation was changed into the fervor of the Holy Spirit. And because he had been close to the live coal—Brother Simon—he became all afire with love for God and for his neighbor.
For one day when a certain criminal was captured and condemned to lose both his eyes, that young man courageously went, moved by compassion, to the governor while the council was in session. And with many tears and prayers he asked that he be given the grace that one of his eyes be extracted, so that the criminal should not be deprived of both his eyes. But the governor and the council, seeing the youth’s great fervor and burning charity, granted the criminal a complete pardon.1
When we pray as Christ to the Father, we don’t pray, “Forgive me my trespasses”; rather, Christ prays, “Forgive us our trespasses.”
Let me tell you a story about Dick Keusch. Some of you have heard this before. We had a retreat with Father Cantalamessa, who’s a wonderful retreat master and writes wonderful books, and was very kind to come and give us a retreat. And those of you who have had the great privilege of meeting Dick will especially recognize him in this story, I think. But he went into confession to Father Cantalamessa, and he got in there and he just—he said, “Oh, Father,” he said, “I am the most miserable, I am the meanest, the poorest-spirited man. I’m so stingy, and I am so cramped, and I am so. . . .” and all—every—and he just kept accusing himself of more and more. And Father—he said—Dick told me this story, and he said Father Cantalamessa: every time Dick would say something about himself, his head would go “Ooh, ooh ….” [laughter], and—he just kind of shriveled down. And his head was shaking back and forth like this, and he said, “Ohhhh . . . so am I.” [Laughter.] And Dick left that confession just relieved of all this sin. All this burden was just taken from him. Cantalamessa just absorbed it all . . . in Christ.
There is another way in which the “big picture” can be for some of us a change in perspective. If we are to live the life of Christ, it means that union with God, union with God, is meant to be an integral part of the Christian life. Look at the life of Jesus. His unity with the Father undergirded the whole thing. That’s why we began on Monday night with the meditation on the prodigal son.
Sometimes, we can think that the reality Jesus described, namely, that “I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you,” from John 14 [John 14:20, RSV], is only for a few chosen people in this life. That is not true. Rather, this union is the essence of God’s plan.
This might be hard for some to hear, because it might bring us face to face with our need to change: to turn from the old Adam, the old man in me; to convert and turn to Christ, submit to his ways; to live his life, and return to the Father’s house. If we persist in thinking that this reality is not for us, we remove it to a mountaintop, so to speak. And then, to fill the void we will probably make for ourselves a golden calf: a substitute, an offering we can afford to make to God. Something of our own construction that will satisfy our need for religion.
If we are the elder son, we might hear this word, that union with the Father in Christ is for us. And we might grow angry, because the Father isn’t bringing it about the way we think he should. So we settle for something easier, less painful. Even though the life of Christ cannot be reduced to a set of formulas or procedures, we give ourselves a rule to live by. We make a golden calf. We build ourselves a golden calf, and like the elder son, we become blind to the true nature of the Father and the union that he desires with us.
[Recording ends here.]
Endnotes
1. The Little Flowers of Saint Francis, trans. Raphael Brown, (New York: Image, Doubleday, 1958), 134-6. Return to text
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