On the Road of the World With Jesus

At the beginning of Lent, it does us good to reflect together as priests on mercy. We all need it. Also the faithful, since as pastors we must extend great, great mercy!

The passage from the Gospel of Matthew that we heard makes us turn our gaze to Jesus as he goes about the cities and villages. And this is curious. Where was Jesus most often, where he could most easily be found? On the road. He might have seemed to be homeless, because he was always on the road.

Jesus’ life was on the road. He especially invites us to grasp the depths of his heart, what he feels for the crowds, for the people he encounters: that interior attitude of “compassion”; seeing the crowds, he felt compassion for them. For he saw the people were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”. We have heard these words so many times that perhaps they do not strike us powerfully. But they are powerful! A little like the many people whom you meet today on the streets of your own neighborhoods....

Then the horizon broadens, and we see that these towns and villages are not only Rome and Italy; they are the world ... and those helpless crowds are the peoples of many nations who are suffering through even more difficult situations....

Thus we understand that we are not here to take part in a pleasant retreat at the beginning of Lent, but rather to hear the voice of the Spirit speaking to the whole Church of our time, which is the time of mercy. I am sure of this. It is not only Lent; we are living in a time of mercy, and have been for 30 years or more, up to today.

In the Church, everything is the time of mercy. This was an intuition of Bl. John Paul II. He “sensed” that this was the time of mercy. We think of the Beatification and Canonization of Sr Faustina Kowalska; then he introduced the Feast of Divine Mercy. Little by little he advanced and went forward on this.

Pope Francis, Address to the priests of the Diocese of Rome, March 6, 2014

Reflection – This is another really beautiful talk from Pope Francis on his favorite theme of mercy, which he truly has come back to many times in the first year of his pontificate. I do find it fascinating that more than once he has linked it to Pope John Paul II and his promotion of the devotion to the Divine Mercy that came through St. Faustina Kowalska. And of course Blessed John Paul II (soon to be saint himself!) issued as (I believe) his second encyclical Dives in Misericordia, ‘Rich in Mercy’, which truly presents God the Father as the source and center of merciful love.

So of course the Pope here is talking to his own priests and calls them to be, primarily and principally men of mercy, men who in their spiritual fatherhood show forth the mercy of the Father. And for the priests reading this blog and for me writing it, this is always a great examination of conscience and a true call to ongoing conversion—let us be these merciful pastors of souls always, eh guys?

But of course the large majority of my blog readers are lay people, and so we can reflect together on this reality of the Church as merciful, the Church as showing forth the mercy of the Father. It’s not just for the priests and bishops, after all, to do this. All are called to be merciful, all called to be gentle and kind, according to the ability and gifts of each.

Mercy of course does not mean moral relativism or moral chaos or moral compromise. We each need to know exactly where the lines are that we ourselves cannot cross in our engagement with other people; we each need to pray for great wisdom and courage, justice and prudence, to know when or how to speak a hard truth, and for that matter when it may be that justice, prudence, and love require us to be silent. Mercy is not a matter of one or the other, but of a genuine compassion for the other person and a thoroughgoing concern for their good, and not our own selfish agendas.

Above all mercy means being quick to forgive, slow to judge, striving to believe the best of people and giving everyone every possible benefit of the doubt, living in deep humility as to the limits of our own knowledge and wisdom, knowing full well our own sinfulness and the blindness and folly it engenders in us, and above all constantly turning to God to lift up to him the world and its pains and anguish, so that he may heal us all. And this is the call that everyone is called to today.

I Am a Sinner - How About You?

The second element [of conversion is] abiding in love. The love of Jesus Christ lasts forever, it has no end because it is the very life of God. This love conquers sin and gives the strength to rise and begin again, for through forgiveness the heart is renewed and rejuvenated.

We all know it: our Father never tires of loving and his eyes never grow weary of watching the road to his home to see if the son who left and was lost is returning. We can speak of God’s hope: our Father expects us always, he doesn’t just leave the door open to us, but he awaits us. He is engaged in the waiting for his children.

And this Father also does not tire of loving the other son who, though staying at home with him the whole time, does not share in his mercy, in his compassion. God is not only at the origin of love, but in Jesus Christ he calls us to imitate his own way of loving: “as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (Jn 13:34).

To the extent to which Christians live this love, they become credible disciples of Christ to the world. Love cannot bear being locked up in itself. By its nature it is open, it spreads and bears fruit, it always kindles new love.

Dear brothers and sisters, after this celebration, many of you will be made missionaries to offer to others the experience of reconciliation with God. “24 hours for the Lord” is an initiative to which many dioceses have adhered in every part of the world.

To the many you will meet, you can communicate the joy of receiving the forgiveness of the Father and of rediscovering full friendship with him. And you will tell them that our Father expects us, our Father forgives us, and furthermore that he rejoices. If you go to him with your whole life, even with the many sins, instead of reproaching you, he will rejoice: this is our Father. This you must say, say it to many people, today.

Whoever experiences divine mercy, is impelled to be an architect of mercy among the least and the poor. In these “littlest brothers” Jesus awaits us (cf. Mt 25:40); let us receive mercy and let us give mercy! Let us go to the encounter and let us celebrate Easter in the joy of God!

Pope Francis, Penance Service, March 28, 2014

Reflection – This is lovely, vintage Pope Francis in style and content—that is, simple, clear, missionary, merciful. I was talking with friends recently about various matters in church and society, and we touched upon the fact that the word ‘sin’ is four-letter word, so to speak, to many people today. Even in the Church (where according to the stereotype of Catholicism that’s all we ever talk about), you really don’t hear it mentioned too much at all, not in most places.

While there may be many reasons for that fact, I think the primary one, the one that lies underneath it all, is that it is still and largely very difficult for us to really believe in the mercy of God. Just how tender and compassionate and merciful and kind our God is to us—this eludes us.

And because it eludes us, I believe, to frankly and freely say “I’m a sinner! We’re all sinners! You’re a sinner too!” is unacceptable. If God is not merciful, then my being a sinner, your being a sinner, will destroy us. When we really behold our sins, our frank refusals to love, our deliberate disobeying or ignoring of the moral law in this or that particular—well, if there isn’t mercy waiting for us in the Father, then we’d best be despairing.

And so we just don’t use that word. We dress it up in a thousand disguises and equivocations and euphemisms. We make excuses, we rationalize, and desperately cling to whatever latest edited version of the moral law we chance upon, that let’s us off the sin hook. We dance around, contort ourselves and reality—anything other than say, simply, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your child.”

But He is merciful, you know. And so we don’t have to do all that nonsense. And it is so beautiful, so unutterably, gloriously beautiful, to simply know oneself as a sinner held in the bountiful mercy of God. So much better than the tiresome and frankly tiring effort to self-justify, to constantly wriggle off the hook, and of course to put someone else on that hook in our place (I’m not a sinner, but YOU ARE!).

So I want to go on record: I, Fr. Denis Raymond Lemieux, am a sinner. I have sinned. May God have mercy on me, as I pray He has mercy on us all. And may we all come to know the joy and freedom that comes only from living in the mercy of God.

Not From Fear, But From Love

During the time of Lent, the Church, in the name of God, renews her appeal to repentance. It is the call to change one’s life. Conversion is not the question of a moment or a time of the year, it is an undertaking that lasts one’s entire lifetime. Who among us can presume not to be a sinner? No one. We are all sinners.

The Apostle John writes: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn 1:8-9). And that is what is happening during this celebration and throughout this day of penance.

The Word of God that we heard introduces us to two essential elements of Christian life. The first: putting on the new nature. The new man, “created after the likeness of God” (Eph 4:24), is born in Baptism, when one receives the very life of God, which renders us his children and incorporates us into Christ and his Church.

This new life permits us to look at reality with different eyes, without being distracted by things that don't matter and cannot last long, from things that perish with time. For this we are called to abandon the behavior of sin and fix our gaze on what is essential.

“A man is more precious for what he is than for what he has” (Gaudium et spes, n. 35). This is the difference between life deformed by sin and life illumined by grace. From the heart of the person renewed in the likeness of God comes good behavior: to speak always the truth and avoid all deceit; not to steal, but rather to share all you have with others, especially those in need; not to give in to anger, resentment and revenge, but to be meek, magnanimous and ready to forgive; not to gossip which ruins the good name of people, but to look more at the good side of everyone. It is a matter of clothing oneself in the new man, with these new attitudes.

Pope Francis, Penance Service, March 28, 2014

Reflection – Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve had any papal blogging, and so it seems timely to check in with Pope Francis and what he’s been saying lately. This is from that famous penance service which included that shocking (shocking, I tell you!!!) picture of the Pope going to confession at St. Peter’s.

Apparently it is unprecedented in the history of ever for popes to go to confession and no one ever had any idea that popes went to confession and isn’t this just the most amazing pope in the history of ever and zzzzz…. Oops, sorry. Drifted off there for a minute.

Popes always go to confession, you know – he just happened to do it in a public setting, which doesn't strike me as being quite the stop-the-presses event people treated it as. Personally, I found it a bit unseemly that the picture of it got distributed and commented on to the extent that it did—I guess I have a real sense that in the confessional each of us, even the Pope, is kneeling before Jesus in such a stance of vulnerability and humility, of abject need, that decency requires we draw a veil of privacy over it, even if it is done in a public setting. But I realize we live in a world where decency is a premium.

Perhaps that is why previous popes have conducted that aspect of their personal spiritual lives in private—it really isn’t good for us to ooh and aah over a fellow Christian as he brings his sins to Jesus. But at any rate, let’s talk about what the Pope said, and leave what he did between him and Our Lord, where it belongs.

He is emphasizing here the fundamentally positive aspect of repentance and conversion. Before it is ‘repentance from’, it is always ‘repentance towards’—the only reason for us to turn away from sin and cleave to Christ is because God/moral goodness/the Gospel are better than sin and self-will and the free exercise of the passions.

We have a vision of life given to us in Christ that is not simply some external Law imposed on us with a  threat of hell fire if we disobey it. Rather, God in Christ is offering us the fulfillment of our humanity, the path of life that yields joy and peace in abundance, the way of love in the world that in the end satisfies all our human longings and desires like nothing else can. This way of love may, and almost certainly does, require sacrifice and strain, bitter pain at times and terrible renunciations at others, but it is our belief that all of this is the price of joy and eternal bliss.

And that is why we turn from sin and turn back to God. Not fear, but love. Indeed, one could argue that it is enlightened self-interest on our part to do so, but the simple fact of the matter is, revealed by Christ, that we are only truly happy when we give ourselves over to the path of love of God and love of neighbor. This is the essential reality we are to fix our gaze upon, and out of that essential reality flows everything else there is to say about moral living and righteous conduct.

Knowing God in the Biblical Sense of the Word

The business of this life should not preoccupy us with its anxiety and pride, so that we no longer strive with all the love of our heart to be like our Redeemer, and to follow his example. Everything that he did or suffered was for our salvation: he wanted his body to share the goodness of its head.

First of all, in taking our human nature while remaining God, so that the Word became man, he left no member of the human race, the unbeliever excepted, without a share in his mercy. Who does not share a common nature with Christ if he has welcomed Christ, who took our nature, and is reborn in the Spirit through whom Christ was conceived?

Again, who cannot recognize in Christ his own infirmities? Who would not recognize that Christ’s eating and sleeping, his sadness and his shedding of tears of love are marks of the nature of a slave?

It was this nature of a slave that had to be healed of its ancient wounds and cleansed of the defilement of sin. For that reason the only-begotten Son of God became also the son of man. He was to have both the reality of a human nature and the fullness of the godhead.

The body that lay lifeless in the tomb is ours. The body that rose again on the third day is ours. The body that ascended above all the heights of heaven to the right hand of the Father’s glory is ours. If then we walk in the way of his commandments, and are not ashamed to acknowledge the price he paid for our salvation in a lowly body, we too are to rise to share his glory. The promise he made will be fulfilled in the sight of all: Whoever acknowledges me before men, I too will acknowledge him before my Father who is in heaven.

Saint Leo the Great, pope

Reflection – ‘The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.’ This was one of the little nuggets of wisdom I heard last week at St. Therese Institute. Keep your priorities straight and your vision clear, your sights set on the goal to which you are heading.

This is what this grand sermon of St. Leo the Great is all about, really. All of the contemplation of the redemption of Christ, his total embrace of our humanity and his total offer to us of his divinity—all of this is ‘the main thing.’ And to keep the main thing the main thing, is a matter of not being preoccupied with ‘the business of this life with its anxiety and pride’.

I’m off again today, once again leaving MH to hit the road, this time driving to the city of Orangeville, north-west of Toronto, to do a parish mission. The theme of the mission, requested by the pastor (an old seminary friend of mine) is metanoia, the great act of conversion that we are all called to do continually. Without spoiling the retreat for the people who might be reading this blog from that parish (hi there, you-know-who-you-are!), this little bit of patristic homiletics is exactly what it’s all about.

Before we can talk about conversion, repentance, turning away from sin and all those cheery topics, we have to talk about the beauty, the goodness, the mercy, and the great and wonderful plan of God. 

Conversion is ‘conversion towards’ before it is ‘conversion from’. It is never strictly a negative affair—oh, I shouldn’t be doing that, oh my beliefs are all wrong, oh my life is horrible.

Any of that may be true, and we may even come into truth, goodness, and beauty through apprehending the ugly, evil, false state we may find ourselves in at one point or another.

But for a conversion to be lasting, real, and deep, we cannot simply be reacting against bad stuff. We have to at some point gain some knowledge, some insight, into the beauty of God. And this is the whole action of Christ in the world—to make known the beauty and goodness of God, so that we have the courage to put aside our sins and idolatries and follow the living God to the end.

And to make it known to us, not only as abstract head knowledge or some external apprehension of the senses, either a good catechism lesson or a beautiful icon. But to make it known to us from the inside out, known ‘in the biblical sense of the word’, as the old saying goes. And this is the whole gift of the Spirit, the interpenetration of God’s life into our life and ours into God’s, by his gracious love.

It’s all so very beautiful, and so fundamentally simple. But we have to keep the main thing the main thing, remember who we are, who God is, and what our life is about. There are so many distractions and follies that engage us. Remember the main: ‘If then we walk in the way of his commandments, and are not ashamed to acknowledge the price he paid for our salvation in a lowly body, we too are to rise to share his glory.’