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May 13, 2019
Sister Jean Evans, RSM
In one of his fragments from the “Sacred Heart Messenger,” Father Michael Paul Gallagher, SJ, describes an experience many of us may recognize: “Bouts of inner emptiness can make faith unreal. Without Energy, the spark of desire, I can sleepwalk through routine prayers. I trust that this dullness of spirit will not last and that God embraces me through this cloud of unfeeling.”
It’s what I would call a “low” Sunday: Nothing too much happening within me, it seems – just boredom, a feeling of disinterest and a general sense of “Who cares?” It is not easy to find the cause of this condition unless we look at the Resurrection gospel stories, in particular at the man labelled a “doubter.” Was it really doubt that caused Thomas’ refusal to believe the apostles? Could his adamant denial, his seeming skepticism have concealed a profoundly painful wound, a feeling so raw that Thomas could not let go of it?
It would take an appearance of Jesus, an opportunity to place his finger into Jesus’ hands and his hand into the Lord’s side before he could believe. Why? Because sometimes it’s easier to hold on to a wound than to let Christ take it from us.
“In every man and in every woman there is a wound, inflicted by failures, humiliations, bad conscience. Perhaps it was caused at a time when we needed infinite understanding and nobody was there to give it,” wrote Brother Roger of the Taize community. It is this “infinite understanding” that the risen Christ wishes to offer to each of us in our vulnerability, for Christ is God’s infinite understanding.
Think of the way he spoke in the passion – words of forgiveness, words of consolation to a thief, words of recognition to the women of Jerusalem, words of care and concern for his mother and beloved disciple. As he approached the disciples in their post-Calvary traumatic stress and vulnerability, he offered a second chance. The grace of forgiveness embraces the apostles in their weakness. At the seaside, when Jesus sees the disciples’ frustration and tiredness, he cooks them breakfast, a BBQ at the beach. He offers them warmth and good humor at a time when they are too embarrassed or ashamed to acknowledge him. “For, none of the disciples was bold enough to ask, ‘Who are you?’ They knew quite well it was the Lord” as the Gospel of John records (John 21:12-13).
Isn’t it true that we have a habit of distancing ourselves? Of allowing our “wound” to obstruct the flow of grace. Like the disciples, we can close ranks and try to forget the ordeal, the pain and the humiliation of our vulnerability. But let’s not forget the promise of Jesus: the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is like a “gentle breeze which, if we can but catch it,” writes Cardinal Basil Hume, OSB, “blows all the time to help us on our journey through life to its final destination, to the Lamb on the throne, to the springs of living water” (Revelation 7:17). The promised Spirit will comfort us, calm our fears, and gently tend our rigid, inflexible minds. That same Spirit will warm what has become frozen within us – arctic circles of memories and hurts. That same Spirit can bridge the distances, heal the loneliness, rekindle weak faith, “if we but catch it.” For the Holy Spirit prepares us for closeness with Jesus.
The truth is this: God desires to be with us. Again, Father Gallagher shares his faith: “It is an extraordinary statement, ‘I stand at the door and knock.’ This is God, being shy, discreet, patient, as if waiting anxiously to be heard. If revelation, as people say, is interruption, this is the gentlest of interruptions, respectful of our slowness and our deafness. While I wander in forgetfulness of who I am meant to be, God stands there hoping for my attention, asking to come in, eager to work a transformation in me. Will I open the door?”
Eileen Caddy, founder of Findhorn, a spiritual community in northern Scotland, suggests a simple approach, one she learned while searching for God’s will in her life: “Listen, listen, listen … to become a good listener you have to listen often. You have to spend time in absolute stillness and learn to be.”
Under quite difficult circumstances while living in a small trailer with another family, Caddy remained faithful to her times of quiet meditation: “… night after night, in hail, rain, snow and everything else, winter and summer. It made me realize where I am God is within.”
With the promise of Jesus to give us an advocate and a consoler, we can be confident and unafraid of our weaknesses because “God’s love has been poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5). With this awareness, let us celebrate our vulnerability, for embraced by the grace of God, our Sundays will not be “low” anymore.
Mercy Sister Jean Evans ministers in the Capuchin Development Office in Burlingame.