Dear Parishioners,
When Jesus says, “Blessed are you who are poor,” we think the poor person is blessed because of the reward they will get after: “for the Kingdom of God is yours.” Same with the hungry, the weeping, and the persecuted. They are blessed because of the future: you will be satisfied, you will laugh, your reward will be great in heaven.
But what if Jesus didn’t intend it to be about the future? What if he meant that being poor in itself is a blessed experience. That you should be happy when you cry not because of the day when there are no more tears and you are laughing, but because crying in itself is a graced moment?
So often we do things we don’t enjoy because of the reward we think we’ll receive later. Exercise, for most people, is like this. We punish ourselves at the gym or on a run because we want to look good later or want to avoid the ill effects of poor health. My fear is that we treat spiritual and religious activities similarly. Mass is a dreadful experience but we do it because God will reward us for it later or, worse, God will punish us if we don’t go. We squirm through prayer or grind out a rosary to check the box. We overlook the present. We ignore obvious signs that we are doing something wrong.
I remember when I first started lifting weights in high school for football and our coach said if you feel pain stop. He didn’t tell us to stop if it was hard. And he explained the difference between burning and pain. Burning was okay, because it meant the muscle was being pushed. Pain was not okay because the muscle was about to be pulled or torn. You had too much weight or had poor form. If we ignored the signs of pain, then we would be injured and the whole purpose of lifting weights would be eliminated as we wouldn’t be able to play.
I say all this because Jesus doesn’t want the present experience to be painful. It can be hard and “burn,” but it doesn’t have to leave you miserable and injured. We need to pay attention to the warning signs in our spiritual activities. If they are painful, we might be doing it wrong and should probably stop.
In the Beatitudes, Jesus is not telling us to suffer the burn because we’ll be rewarded. Yes, the reward will come, but that’s almost an afterthought. Rather, we can find meaning and even joy in the actual experience of being poor, of hungering, of weeping, and of being persecuted.
Let’s take the example of weeping. Tears, many saints say, are a gift from God. The experience of crying can be very healing and therapeutic. Instead of bottling up our emotion, whether it be positive or negative, we let the emotion flow through us. Our souls then are united to our bodies, and our bodies are united to the environment around us. The emotion wells up in the soul, it flows through the body in the form of tears, and the people around us see those tears and are affected. Even if we cry in private, our tears affect the world around us in a mystical way. Tears are a very human and integrative experience. So, you are blessed if you weep. The soul is burning when you weep. And, like a muscle, it means your soul is growing.
Maybe we should try weeping some day. Maybe we should also try being poor, going hungry, and being persecuted for something righteous.
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Happy President’s Day weekend. As a reminder, there will be no school and we will only have one daily Mass at 8:30 a.m. on Monday, February 17. There will be no 6:25 a.m. Mass. May we keep our president and all of our elected officials in our prayers.
This Saturday, February 22nd our parish will be celebrating the Sacrament of Confirmation for our students. We will have two services and Bishop Daniel Turley will be our celebrant for the Masses. Congratulations, students and sponsors. May the Holy Spirit flood your souls and fill you with his light.
As I mentioned last week, we are in the midst of the Archdiocese Annual Catholic Appeal. Most of you have probably received mailings. Thank you for your contribution. Our goal this year is $152,876, which is 7% of our previous year’s offertory income. This annual campaign is very important for the Archdiocese to fund its ministries and other services, particularly for poorer schools and parishes. Next we will conduct the in-pew solicitation.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. James Wallace
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