THE SINGLE LIFE by Ron Rolheiser

THE SINGLE LIFE

2013-10-27

The universe works in pairs. From the atoms to the human species, generativity is predicated on union with another. Happiness, it would seem, is also predicated on that.

So where does that leave singles and celibates? How can they be normal, generative, and happy?

For many people living single and celibate, life can seem unfair. Everything, it seems, is set up for couples, while they are single. And that isn't the only problem. A further problem is that, too often, neither our churches nor our society give singles and celibates the symbolic-tools to understand their state in a life-giving way.

Consequently, single persons often feel like they're looking in at life from the outside, that they're abnormal, that they're missing something essential within life. Moreover, unlike married persons and vowed religious, few single persons feel that they have positively chosen their state of life. They feel it rather as an unfortunate conscription. Few single persons feel easeful and accepting of their lot. Instead they regard it as something temporary, something still to be overcome. Rarely does a single person, especially a younger person, see himself or herself growing old and dying single - and happy. Invariably the feeling is: This has to change. I didn't choose this! I can't see myself like this for the rest of my life!

There are real dangers in feeling like this. First, there's the danger of never fully and joyfully picking up one's life and seeing it as worthwhile, of never positively accepting what one is, of never accepting the spirit that fits the life that one is actually living. As well, there's the danger of panicking and marrying simply because marriage is seen as a panacea with no real possibility of happiness outside of it.

Partially those fears are well-founded. Being single and celibate does bring with it a real loss. Denial is not a friend here. Pious wishing or platonic spiritualities that deny the power of sexuality don't placate our emotions or erase the fact that God said: It is not good for the man to be alone. The universe works in pairs and to be single is to be different, more different than we dare admit. Thomas Merton, reflecting on his own celibate state, once put it this way: "The refusal of woman is fault in my chastity. ... And all my compensations are a desperate and useless expedient to cover this irreparable loss which I have not fully accepted. ... I can learn to accept it in the spirit and in love and it will no longer be 'irreparable.' The cross repairs and transforms it. The tragic chastity which suddenly realizes itself to be mere loss, and the fear that death has won - that one is sterile, useless, hateful. I do not say this is my lot, but in my vow I can see this as an ever-present possibility." Celibacy and the single life bring with them real dangers for immaturity and unhappiness.

But, paradoxically, admitting this truth is the first step in beginning to live positively beyond those dangers. Sexuality is a dimension of our self-awareness. We awake to consciousness and feel ourselves, at every level, as cut off, sexed, lonely monads separated and aching for unity. Celibacy is indeed a fault in our humanity.

However, to be celibate and single doesn't necessarily mean that one is asexual or sterile. Today the impression is often given that no happiness exists outside of sexual union. That's superficial and untrue. Sexuality is the drive in us towards connection, community, family, friendship, affection, love, creativity, delight, and generativity. We are happy and whole when these things are in our lives, not on the basis of whether or not we sleep alone. The single celibate life offers its own opportunities for achieving these. God never closes one door without opening countless others. For instance, when our culture recognizes that it's easier to find a lover than a friend, it recognizes too that human sexuality and generativity are more than biological.

There are other ways of being healthily sexual, of getting pregnant and impregnating, of being mother or father, of sexual enjoying intimacy. Sexuality, love, generativity, family, enjoyment, and delight have multiple modalities.

Early on in my ministry, I once served as a spiritual director to a young man who was discerning between marriage and priesthood. His greatest hesitation in moving towards priesthood was one particular fear: "I've always been afraid of being a priest because celibacy will mean dying alone. My father died when I was 15, but he died in my mother's arms. I've always resisted celibacy because I want to die like my father died - in a woman's arms. But, meditating on Christ's life one day, it struck me that Jesus died alone, loved, but in nobody's arms. He was alone, but powerfully linked to everyone in a different way. It struck me that this too could be a good way to die!"

It can be, but only if first, as Merton says, the cross repairs and transforms us.

SAINT OR SINNER?

By Ron Rolheiser 

2013-10-13

What are we ultimately, saints or sinners? What's deepest inside us, goodness or selfishness? Or, are we dualists with two innate principles inside us, one good and one evil, in a perpetual dual with each other?

Certainly, at the level of experience, we feel a conflict. There's a saint inside us who wants to mirror the greatness of life, even as there is someone else inside us that wants to walk a seedier path. I like the honesty of Henri Nouwen when he describes this conflict in his own life: "I want to be great saint," he once confessed, "but I don't want to miss out on all the sensations that sinners experience." It's because of this bi-polar tension inside us that we find it so hard to make clear moral choices. We want the right things, but we also want many of the wrong things. Every choice is a renunciation and so the struggle between saint and sinner inside us often manifests itself precisely in our inability to make hard choices.

But we don't feel this tension only in our struggle to make clear moral decisions; we feel it daily in our spontaneous reaction to situations that affect us adversely. Simply put, we are forever bouncing back and forth between being petty and being big-hearted, spiteful and forgiving, whenever we are negatively impacted by others.

For instance, we all have had this kind of experience: We are at work and in a good emotional state, thinking peaceful and patient thoughts, nursing warm feelings, wishing harm to no one, when a co-worker comes in and, without good reason, slights or insults us in some way.  In one instant, our whole inner world reverses: A door slams shut and we begin to feel cold and spiteful, thinking anything but warm thoughts, seemingly becoming different persons: moving from being big-hearted to being spiteful, from being saints to entertaining murderous feelings.

Which is our true person? What are we really, saints with big hearts or petty, spiteful persons? Seemingly, we are both, saints and sinners, since goodness and selfishness both flow through us.

Interestingly, we don't always react in the same way. Sometimes in the face of a slight, insult, or even positive attack and injustice, we react with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Why? What changes the chemistry? Why do we sometimes meet pettiness with a big-heart and, other times, meet it in kind, with spite?

Ultimately, don't know the reason; that's part of the mystery of human freedom. Certain factors obviously play in; for example, if we are in a good inner-space when we are ignored, slighted, or unfairly treated, we are more prone to react with patience and understanding, with a big heart. Conversely, if we are tired, pressured, and feeling unloved and unappreciated, we are more likely to react negatively, and return spite for spite.

But, be that as it may, ultimately there's deeper reality at work in all of this, beyond our emotional well being on a given day. How we react to a situation, with grace or spite, for the most part depends upon something else. The Church Fathers had a concept and name for this. They believed that each of us has two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, and how we react to any situation depends largely upon which soul we are thinking with and acting out of at that moment. Thus, if I meet an insult or an injury with my big soul, I am more likely to meet it with patience, understanding, and forgiveness. Conversely, if I meet an insult or a hurt while operating out of my petty soul, I am more likely to respond in kind, with pettiness, coldness, and spite.  And, for the Church Fathers, both of these souls are inside us and both are real; we're both big-hearted and petty, saint and sinner. The challenge is to operate more out of our big soul than our petty one.

But we must be careful to not understand this dualistically. In affirming that we have two souls, a big soul and a petty soul, the Church Fathers are not teaching a variation of an old dualism, namely, that there are inside us two innate principles, one good and one evil, perpetually fighting for control of our hearts and souls. That kind of struggle in fact does go on inside us, but not between two separate principles.

The saint and sinner inside us are not separate entities. Rather the saint in us, the big soul, is not only our true self, it's our only self. The sinner in us, the petty soul, is not a separate person or separate moral force doing perpetual battle with the saint, it's simply the wounded part of the saint, that part of the saint that's been cursed and never properly blessed.

And our wounded self shouldn't to be demonized and cursed again. Rather it needs to be befriended and blessed - and then it will cease being petty and spiteful in the face of adversity.

Clarity - A Catholic Outreach agency in Singapore

It is really good to know that Catholics in Singapore are doing more than just defending the faith or attending Mass on Sundays. This new initiative to administer to the emotional needs of Singaporeans regardless of their religious affiliation is one aspect of the New Evangelism Plan. It is indeed money well spend when it is used to benefit society's 'downtrodden'.

Link to Charity article at Asiaone.com

Embittered Moralizing - An Occupational Hazard for Good, Faithful Persons

2013-08-11
In a masterful book on grace, Piet Fransen suggests that we can test how well we understand grace by gauging our reaction to this story:

Imagine a man who during his whole life is entirely careless about God and morality. He's selfish, ignores the commandments, ignores all things religious, and is basically consumed with pursuing his own pleasure - wine, sex, and song. Then, just hours before his death, he repents of his irresponsibility, makes a sincere confession, receives the sacraments of the church, and dies inside that conversion.

What's our spontaneous reaction to that story? Isn't it wonderful that he received the grace of conversion before he died? Or, more likely: The lucky beggar! He got away with it! He got to have all that pleasure and still gets to go to heaven!

If we felt the latter emotion, even for a moment, we have never deeply understood the concept of grace. Rather, like the older brother of the prodigal son, we are still seeing life away from God's house as fuller than life inside God's house, are still doing the right things mostly out of bitter duty, and are secretly envying the amoral. But, if this is true, we must be gentle with ourselves. This is an occupational hazard for good, faithful persons.

Jesus, himself, expresses this in the parable of the vineyard workers. This parable was addressed to Peter in answer to a question. Peter, on behalf of the other disciples, had just asked Jesus what reward they were going to receive for their fidelity to him. Jesus answers by telling him the story of very rich and generous landowner who goes out one morning and hires workers to work in his vineyard. He hires some early in the morning, promises them a good wage, keeps hiring others as the day progresses, each new group having to work fewer hours than the group before them, and ends the day by hiring a group of workers just one hour before work is to end. Then he tells his foreman to pay everyone a full day's wage. But this leaves the workers who toiled the whole day somewhat bitter. "This isn't fair!" they protest. "We worked the whole day and bore the heat of the sun and this last group worked just one hour. It's unfair that we all receive the same wage!" The generous landowner, obviously representing God, is gentle in his response: "Friend, didn't you agree to this wage? And isn't a good wage? Are you envious and angry because I'm generous?"

Remember to whom those words are being addressed: Jesus is addressing Peter ... and, in effect, through this parable, is addressing all good people who are morally and religiously bearing the heat of the day. And Jesus is assuring us that we will be rewarded richly for doing this. But, as the parable makes clear, there's a catch: Simply put, we will be rewarded with heaven and it will be wonderful; but, and this is the catch, we can have everything and enjoy nothing because we are watching what everyone else is getting!

I sometimes try to highlight this point rather graphically when I give retreats to priests and religious. I have them consider this scenario: Imagine you live out your life in fidelity to the your vow of celibacy, metaphorically and otherwise bearing the heat of the day and, when you get to heaven, the first person you meet there is Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy. In shock you protest to God: "How did he get in here? It's not fair, given the life he lived and the life that I was asked to live!" And God, the over-generous landowner, gently replies: "Friend, didn't you agree to a life of celibacy, and isn't heaven a wonderful place? Are you envious and angry because I'm generous?" And, how different this reaction to that of a true saint who, upon meeting someone like this in heaven, would, like the father of the prodigal son, rush over in joy, embrace the person, and say: "I'm overwhelmed with joy that you made it!"

Thomas Halik, a Czech writer, suggests that one of the reasons why so many people in the world reject the churches is that they see us as "embittered moralizers", older brothers of the prodigal son, doing our religious and moral duties, but bitterly, and criticizing those who don't live like us out of hidden envy. Nietzsche made a similar accusation more than a hundred years ago.

Sadly, there's more than a little truth in that accusation. Too often, we are embittered moralizers, secretly envying the amoral and criticizing our world out of bitterness. But that's an occupational hazard for the good and the faithful. Peter and first apostles struggled with it. Why should we be immune?

We needn't be immune, but we do need to be honest in admitting that, despite our real goodness and fidelity, this indicates that we are still far from being full saints.

Source: RON ROLHEISER, OMI Speaker, Columnist and Author, http://www.ronrolheiser.com/ 

Struggling for our Father's Blessing

RON ROLHEISER, OMI Speaker, Columnist and Author
2013-06-16
When I was in elementary school, we were made to memorize a number of poems by William Blake. We didn't understand them, but they had a wonderful jingle to them, were easy to commit to memory, and remain branded inside me to this day.

One of those was a piece entitled, Infant Sorrow:

My mother groaned! my father wept.

Into this dangerous world I leapt:

Helpless, naked, piping loud:

Life a fiend hid in a cloud.



Struggling in my father's hands,

Striving against my swaddling bands,

Bound and weary I thought it best

To sulk upon my mother's breast.


Whole books on anthropology, psychology, and spirituality could be written on this poem: our struggle for our father's blessing, our ambivalence in separating from our mothers, the constriction this creates in our hearts, our inevitable slide into depression as adults, and the impact this has on our spiritual lives. Blake captures a lot in very few words, hidden inside some simple rhymes; but, as already confessed; I didn't have a clue about any of this when I memorized this poem as a child.

The poem came back to me several years ago, after preaching a homily in a church. The Gospel for that Sunday was the story of Jesus' baptism. The text runs like this: Jesus goes to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. John immerses him in the water, as Jesus re-emerges, his head breaks the water (an image of birth), the heavens open, and the Father's voice is heard to say: "This is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!"

The point I made in my homily was pretty straightforward: I simply told the congregation that, when we were baptized, the Father spoke the same words over each of us: "This is my beloved, in whom I am well-pleased!" Those should have been safe words; they weren't. Immediately after the service a young man affronted me, agitated and upset about my homily. He shared that he was out of prison on bail, awaiting sentencing. He had come to Mass that Sunday to try to ready himself to face what awaited him, but the service had the opposite effect. It had increased his anger and agitation, particularly so my homily. Here's how he expressed his frustration: "I hated your homily because it wasn't true! Nobody has ever been pleased by what I have done - least of all my own father!"

It's no accident that this young man was going to prison; he had not been blessed by his own father. Like the narrator in the Blake poem, he was "struggling" in his father's hands. His own father, unlike God, the Father, had never blessed him, that is, either his father had never been present enough to him and truly interested in him or he had been unable to take delight in his son's person and energy so as to give him the assurance that he was neither a threat nor a disappointment to his father. In essence, this son had never been a major source of joy to his father, and that is a real absence that wounds.

Hunger for our father's blessing is perhaps the deepest hunger in our world today. That's an adage inside certain spirituality and anthropological circles today and the evidence for its truth is found in the body language in a room whenever the phrase is spoken aloud to a group, especially to a group of men.

And what happens when we aren't sufficiently blessed by our own fathers? Mostly the effects are under the surface and not attributed to our fathers, unless we reach a certain level of conscious realization of how we are wounded. The absence of the father's blessing is mostly felt inchoately, a thirst, a constriction of the heart, an absence of delight, and a sense of never quite measuring-up. This often finds expression in anger, distrust of authority, and in a low-grade depression that often drives persons into various combinations of acedia, obsession for achievement, and sex as a panacea. It can also have a very negative impact on people religiously. There's an axiom in Freudian thought that suggests that most anger directed at institutionalized religion is anger directed at your own father or the father-figures in your life. That helps explain why so many people who have had little or no meaningful relationship to organized religion are angry at religion and the churches.

What's the solution? How do we get this constriction off our hearts, if we haven't been sufficiently blessed by our own fathers?

Christian spirituality teaches us that we receive by giving. We attain things by giving them away, as the famous Prayer of St. Francis puts it. We cannot make ourselves happy, but we can help make others happy. Thus, we cannot force anyone to bless us - but we can bless others. Wholeness and happiness lie there. Simply put, when we act like God, we get to feel like God ... and God never suffers from anger and low-grade depression.

The Advocate (The Holy Spirit) John 14:23-29

The Advocate (The Holy Spirit) John 14:23-29

The 3 promises from John 14:23-29

The 1^st Promise
Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid. This is a Gospel of beautiful promises.

The first promise is God’s love and in dwelling in those who love and obey Jesus.[u1] 

Jesus makes clear again that true love for Him is shown by deeds: “Whoever loves Me will keep My word.” Jesus’ word that we must keep is His command that we love one another as He has loved us. The reward is practically a taste of heaven on earth, because Jesus promises to one who loves Him and keeps His words that “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.” [u2] The Father and the Son, and their Spirit will live in us if we obey the command of Jesus and live in mutual love! Indeed, there is nothing closer to heaven on earth than the experience of living in love together in obedience to Jesus’ command of love.[u3] 

The 2^nd Promise

Next, Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, whom the Father will send in Jesus’ name. The Advocate will teach the disciples everything that the Lord Jesus has told them. He will make them understand what Jesus has not been able to make them understand.[u4] 

The 3^rd Promise

The last promise is peace, a peace that is not simply the absence of trouble but the inner harmony that comes from having a right relationship with God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who live in us. This peace we can have even in the face of suffering and death.[u5] 

Trust in the promises of Jesus and you will have peace!

Q1. Do you see Jesus as your boss or as a friend?

If you see Jesus as your boss which is an idea that many of us feel more comfortable with, we fail to understand that he wants us to relate to him as a friend. There is a limit to what a boss can demand from you. There is no such limit when it comes to friendship and intimacy.  

When Jesus speaks in today’s gospel of “those who love me” he is referring to his followers. For Jesus “those who love me” is another way of saying “my disciples” or “those who believe in me” or simply “Christians.” The relationship between the Christian and Christ is essentially a love relationship. That is why Jesus said in John 15:15 “I do not call you servants any longer … I call you friends.”

Q2. What do people who love each other what to do most?

One thing we know about love is that lovers want to be with each other.

Q3. How do we love Jesus who is not physically with us?

This is what today’s gospel is all about. In the gospel Jesus prepares his disciples, those who love him, for his departure from this world and shows them how they can keep love and intimacy alive even in his physical absence.

Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our home with them (John 14:23).

If you love Jesus, (1) Keep his word. Follow his teachings. (2) This will activate God’s special love for you, and (3) Jesus and his Father will come and live permanently with you. In this way the vacuum left by the physical absence of Jesus will be filled spiritually by the divine presence which is as real or even more real than the physical presence. Our part in this whole process is to focus on keeping the word of Christ.

But how do we be sure we know the implication and meaning of the word of Christ in the ever changing and ever more complex realities of modern life? How can we be sure what Jesus would do and how he would act in the present concrete situations of our daily lives? Again Jesus foresaw this difficulty and provided for it. “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26).

If that is so, what do we make of the situation in the world today where a thousand Christians all “filled with the Holy Spirit” come up with a thousand different answers to the same question? Does the Holy Spirit contradict Himself? Here it is important to note that the “you” to whom these promises are made is plural, meaning, primarily, the community of believers, the church. Of course the Holy Spirit is with us individually, but the Holy Spirit is given primarily to the church and, through the church, to us as individuals when we become members of the church.

Q4. What does the you in The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:26) refer to?

Here it is important to note that the “you” to whom these promises are made is plural, meaning, primarily, the community of believers, the church. Of course the Holy Spirit is with us individually, but the Holy Spirit is given primarily to the church and, through the church, to us as individuals when we become members of the church.

Q5. How does the Holy Spirit work in the Church?

This is what we see in the 1^st reading where disagreements among Christians are resolved through dialogue and community discernment and not through each one consulting the Holy Spirit privately. In the end they come out with a resolution which begins “it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us.” (Acts 15:28). The word of Christ continues to live and resound in the word of the Holy Spirit speaking through the church. The days between the Ascension of Christ and Pentecost are special days of prayer for all Christians as they were for the first disciples of Jesus. This year let us pray especially for the gift of church unity, so that together we all can discern what the Spirit is saying to the church in the modern world and so bear united witness to the life-giving word of Christ.

---

 [u1]THE FIRST PROMISE

 [u2]A taste of heaven on Earth.

 [u3]What heaven on earth looks like.

 [u4]What we have not understood, the Holy Spirit will make clear to us in good time.

 [u5]A peace felt even in the face of suffering and death.

The City of God (Rev21:10-14; 22-23)

The city of God (Rev21:10-14; 22-23)

Q1.What did the early Christians and Jews viewed the destruction of the Temple?

The fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in the year ad 70 by the Roman army was the September-eleven of the Jewish nation of the time, and more. For the Jews the city of Jerusalem, adorned by the resplendent temple, was not just one of the wonders of the world, it was the very house of the Almighty God. God Himself ordered the building of the temple, God himself dictated every detail of the structure and decoration of the temple. It was God’s one and only house in the whole wide world. The navel of the earth, the umbilical cord connecting creation to the creator was located in the temple in Jerusalem. And God swore an everlasting covenant to uphold His people (the Jews), his city (Jerusalem) and His house (the temple). The early Christians thought that the fall of Jerusalem would be the end of the world. The idea of having a people of God without the temple never crossed their minds until the temple actually fell and world did not end.

Q2. How did John’s vision of the City of God differ from that of the early Christians and the Jews?

The last vision of John in Patmos is a vision concerning the last things. There we see God being true to His promises as he restores the holy city Jerusalem and its temple. This restoration, however, does not take place in the manner that the Jewish people of the time expected it. First, we see that in place of the material city that was built from the ground up, we now see a spiritual city coming down from above, “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:10). Secondly, unlike the earthly Jerusalem with its irregular contours, the new city has a perfect square shape, four equal sides with three gates on each side. Finally, in place of the temple built with destructible brick and mortar, for the new city “its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (verse 22).  

Q3. What does John’s vision tell us about God’s promise and how it would be fulfilled?

Seen against the background of Jewish expectations, John’s vision of the restoration of the holy city Jerusalem is saying two things. (1) God is always faithful to fulfill His word. When God says that His city is everlasting, God will see to it that His city is everlasting. Even when that city is utterly destroyed before our very eyes and all hope appears to be lost, God can always recreate the holy city out of nothing. This means that no matter how bad things may seem to be, in God there is always hope. What God has promised, God will fulfill by and by. (2) God does not always fulfill His word in the manner in which we expect it. We often expect God to fulfill His word to us in the material order, then God goes on and fulfills it in the spiritual order, and we fail to see it because we have our eyes trained only on the material horizon.

The visions of John in Revelation are a preview into eternity. There we see that God is true to his covenant promise never to abandon His people, His city, and His house. But God’s people, God’s city, and God’s house are now understood in a spiritual and not a material sense.

Q4. How did the Jews view the way that God will fulfill his promises to them?  

Many Jews at the time of Jesus failed to see the marvelous things God was doing in their midst because they were expecting God to act in one way and God was actually acting in another way. The problem was in their narrow expectations as to who could be the Messiah (must be a son of David!), where he could or could not come from (not from Galilee!), how the Messiah would appear (not through normal birth by a woman as a helpless baby!), and how he would liberate God’s people Israel (by defeating the Roman army of occupation). When God did it His own way and not their own way, they failed to get it. As Christians we fall into the same mistake when we allow ourselves to believe that God can use certain people and not other people, God can come into our lives in certain ways and not in other ways, God is in certain religious traditions and not in others.

Q5. How will the Church of today be different from the City of God?

In the New Jerusalem, there is no temple, no priesthood, no rituals, no laws, and no religion. There is only God who is everything to everyone. May we never cease to wonder at the incomprehensible mystery of God unfolding before our very eyes in our world today.