Good Day Supporters and Lurkers! Since I passed on a morning religious ramble I thought I would share one with you mid-day. As a whole Christians do not believe in karma as a life leveling reality. But we do believe that like often attracts like and the company you keep often determines your experience. Today's Gospel at Mass is about as close as we get to karma and it is something that God's administers rather than being at work in the world of its own free will.
Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back.
That passage follows an invitation to be merciful so that you might receive mercy. Not the same as karma, but the passage informs us that we will get what we give measured back to us. God is never outdone in mercy & forgiveness, and at the same time is profoundly aware of the motivations and desires of individuals. There is no bullshitting the Almighty. God sees through every pretense. The Judgement will be more about our ability to be honest with ourselves or if we keep believing the lies we tell ourselves to keep our warped world view intact. The inability to be contrite will certainly hurt us The distortions of the diabolical are seductive to any who grow accustomed to self-deception.
Mercy and our cultivating of it does mean we have to pretend that life is all hunky-dory when in fact life is a fractured mess and sleep-walking humanity is more dangerous than any wild animal. Mercy is often about the temptation to define our life by our wounds & misfortunes. We cultivate a sense on injured victimhood that become the defining narrative of our personal life. In our inability to forgive (not the same as reconciliation) the past and its injuries become a toxic wound in our hearts. It may not ooze out its bitterness all the time, but whenever the memory reoccurs the poison get reintroduced to our person.
Reconciliation takes a mutual awareness of the involved parties. One side forgiving the offense, the other side knowing the offense and being sorry for it. Statements like "I am sorry for everything" are some of the most worthless statements a person can make. Everything might as well mean nothing, because if you can't name it, chances are you aren't sufficiently aware of what you did. Ugly acts of the past find healing in the concreteness of us being able to name them. 12 Steppers know this and people who do the hard work of self-awareness and personal narrative exploration in an effort to make sense of their story. You can't know or accept yourself without knowing the difficult chapters in a new light.
One of the best things about being adult is the ability to hold contrary feelings without fracturing. I can be very hurt over past wrongs done to me and yet be grateful for what I learned from them. Eventually the hurt gives way to acceptance and peace, never ignoring the reality but seeing it in a new light and broader perspective.
One day it leads us to pray for our persecutors since we realize the burden they carry in their broken life. One can hope they are contrite and aware enough to accept the wrong or evil they have done, and repent and make amends where possible, if not they will be a prisoner of it for a lifetime and perhaps beyond.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
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XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
