Forgiveness vs reconciliation

Read II Corinthians 5:17-21

To forgive is one thing. To be reconciled, another.

At its simplest level, forgiveness is basically the decision not to seek vengeance. It means accepting that the person who hurt me will not be punished. “Go, I forgive you” means “You can leave in peace, I won’t pursue you, I won’t seek compensation for the wrong you have done me.”

Reconciliation is more complicated. Of course, reconciliation implies forgiveness. I can’t be reconciled to someone without forgiveness being offered and accepted. But reconciliation means more: it means establishing anew a relationship that was hurt, re-binding myself to someone who wronged me, in spite of that wrong.

I remember a couple where both spouses had hurt each other in a very serious way. Through the help of a professional counselor, they were able to forgive each other, but they were never reconciled. They were willing to let go of the offence, but not to rebuild their relationship. They left each other without bitterness. Still, they left each other.

A relationship is like a rubber band. It can be stretched quite thin by the stress of the wrongs we do to each other. If the wrong is not too severe, forgiveness can lead to reconciliation. Like a rubber band reshapes itself, the relationship can be renewed, recreated. But if the wrong is too great, the relationship can be severed. Then, like a rubber band that has been sundered, nothing more can be done.

At least, outside of God, it seems that nothing more can be done. But in God, reconciliation is always offered. God does not want only to forgive us our sins, God wants to be reconciled with us. God desires more for us than a peaceful heart: God wants to dwell in our heart. God wants us to live in his love.

In the excerpt of the second letter to the Corinthians that we will read this Sunday, Paul uses the expression “reconciliation” no less than five times in two sentences. This passage reaches its climax in a pressing invitation that surges from Paul’s heart: “Let yourselves be reconciled to God.”

Lent is given to us as a privileged time of reconciliation. Not only does God offer us the forgiveness of our sins, God invites us to a new partnership, a new covenant. God offers us reconciliation. For with God, everything can start over. With God, all can be made new.

A warning to religious folk

Read I Corinthians 10:1-12

Jesus was certainly compassionate and merciful with the poor, the sick and the marginalized. Yet he could be demanding and unyielding with those who were well-off, healthy and respectable. While being kind and welcoming for sinners, he could be hard and threatening for those who were considered very religious.

Why this difference of attitude and behaviour? It’s because Jesus came to invite us to change our hearts and welcome a God who turns out to be quite different from what we expect. The poor and the sinners are ready to welcome such an invitation, they are glad to receive it. On the other hand, those are were comfortable with their social situation and satisfied with their religious habits see no reason to change. An invitation to conversion for them is an invitation to let go of a position they enjoy. Their pride is hurt, their convictions questioned. Their personal security is shaken and their social status threatened. They close themselves to Jesus’ invitation. So Jesus has to be quite forceful with them.

Such a death-dealing comfort is a temptation for all of us. We all tend to shape for ourselves a life-style that gives us comfort, whether that comfort be material, psychological or spiritual.

In this Sunday’s second reading, Saint Paul echoes for the Corinthians the challenge that Jesus presents to his listeners in the Gospels. He speaks particularly to those who consider themselves “strong” in the faith. He calls them to humility and ongoing conversion. The fact of knowing Christ and being part of the Church is no guarantee: they must continually return to the Lord to implore his grace and his love.

Paul gives as an example the story of the Israelites as they journeyed towards the promised land. They had all sorts of advantages on their side: the great prophet Moses, the tables of the Law, the gifts of manna falling from heaven and of water springing from a rock, the presence of God both day and night. And yet, many of them resisted Moses. They continued worshipping idols. They ended up wandering in the desert and dying there.

In Christ, the fullness of salvation is offered to each of us. In the Church, Christ comes to us to offer his gifts: his Word and his wisdom, his sacraments, his community and ministers, his very Spirit. We are like Israel on its way to the promised land: everything is given to us, and even more. The question remains: will we know how to respond to this generosity?

God's anger

Read Romans 10:8-13

On the hall of an old abandoned house was scrawled some graffiti: “Jesus is the answer.” Written underneath, in a very different handwriting, was the quip: “What’s the question?”

We sometimes speak in religious clichés, without thinking about the deeper meaning of our expressions. Today’s excerpt from Paul’s letter to the Romans contains a very well-known line: “If you believe, then you will be saved.” Someone could well ask: “Saved from what?”

Many would answer: “From hell, obviously.” Yet, this answer isn’t all that obvious. Read Paul’s letter to the Romans: you won’t find a single instance of the word “hell.” So what does Paul believe we are being saved from?

Sticking with his letter to the Romans, we find his answer: “From God’s anger.” But then, another question arises: “What do you mean by God’s anger?”

Now we’re getting to the heart of the matter. According to Paul, God’s anger has two dimensions. An eternal dimension, which corresponds to God’s will to banish evil from creation so that only love will abide. This eternal dimension will be fulfilled at the end of time in what we call the last judgment.

God’s anger also has a temporal dimension, one which affects us here and now. This is God allowing our evil choices to bear their consequences in our lives. This is God respecting our freedom, standing back as we suffer from the wrongs that we have chosen. Think of global warming. We have abused creation for decades, even centuries. We are only starting to understand the consequences of these evil choices. God’s anger is God allowing these consequences to happen.

What hurts us more immediately is the fruit of the evil we choose on a daily basis. If I choose to be selfish, should I be surprised to find myself abandoned by all, alone in my loneliness? If I choose to give in to every sexual whim of my imagination, should I be astounded never to know the deep joy that comes from a stable, faithful relationship? If I continually choose to be lazy, should I be angry that I never seem to accomplish anything? My sin leads to my own suffering, as well as to the suffering of others.

This is what we need to be saved from. In Jesus, the power of evil can be overcome. We can be freed from our own sinful inclination. We can finally live out of love and come to know true joy, deep peace. Faith in Christ saves us from the hell we are building ourselves day by day. Faith in Christ helps us discover heaven, in the here and now.

A Hymn to Love

Read I Corinthians 12:31 – 13:13

This hymn to love is without doubt one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible. It brings to mind Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical, Deus caritas est (God is love).

In this letter addressed to all the members of the Church, the Pope reminds us that the Greeks had many expressions to speak of the reality we translate with the one word “love.” They used storge to speak of the affection that grows out of familiarity. A good example would be the love between family members. They used philia to designate the special relationship between good friends. They would say eros to point to the kind of passionate love which is expressed in sexual language. They reserved agape for self-giving, even self-sacrificing love.

In his encyclical, the Pope seeks to understand the difference and relationship between eros and agape, a question that should interest all of us. Indeed, our society seems to have made of eros, passionate love, a kind of idol. According to popular movies, music and novels, life finds its value in this kind of whirl-wind of feelings where reason is abandoned, sensuality reigns and morality is absent. In that world-view, the only thing that really matters is powerful emotion, sensual pleasure and possession of the loved one.

The Pope helps us understand that this kind of love, though it is very human, can also be dehumanizing. It reduces people to one single dimension, it makes of others a kind of screen onto which we project our desires. It reduces us to our emotions, fleeting and unstable as they are. We become slaves to our urges and whims.

Only through the conversion and enrichment of eros by means of agape can we truly become human. When passion is transformed into gift, when desire becomes sacrifice, when the love of another takes priority over self-love, then love can be not only a human experience, but a humanizing one.

In this passage of the first letter to the Corinthians, Paul celebrates the agape-love that should exist among the members of a Christian community, for it is a reflection of the love that God has for all of us, a love that took flesh in the person of Jesus-Christ.

Let us therefore read this hymn over and over, let us meditate on it, let us seek to embody it in our relationships with the people who surround us. We will grow in our humanity. We will become more like God.

A saint, me?

Read I Thessalonians 3:12 – 4:2

When I was a child, I imagined sainthood to consist in some type of moral perfection. Saints, as they were presented to me, were men and women who had managed to avoid all sin, to live in perpetual prayer, to attain the pinnacle of all virtues. It seemed to me that being a saint was a heroic achievement that required immense sacrifice. I admired the saints, but I found them distant, nearly inhuman. Never would I have imagined myself being capable of such holiness.

Yet, Saint Paul tells us in today’s reading that we are all called to “blameless holiness” before God as we wait for the coming of the Lord Jesus. Are we being called to an impossible degree of moral perfection? Are we condemned to fail in a project that is beyond our capabilities?

It seems to me that the problem lies in a mistaken notion of holiness. We have developed a wrong idea of what it means to be a saint. Saint Paul himself puts us on the right track when he forwards his call to holiness with these words: “May the Lord give you a love which is evermore intense and overflowing.”

In other words, our degree of holiness does not depend on our moral perfection, but on the depth of our love. The more we love, the holier we are. Since God is love, we must conclude that God is truly the Holy One. This is why at Mass we acclaim God with the words from the book of Isaiah: “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of hosts.”

Inasmuch as we are open to God’s love, inasmuch as we allow God’s love to flow through us out to others, we are saints. Holiness is the outward radiance of the love which is within us. Holiness is the exterior manifestation of an interior attitude, an attitude that is made up of equal parts of compassion, tenderness and care.

Yes indeed, we are all called to holiness, to be saints, since we are all made for love.

Deciphering the Book of Revelation

Read Revelation 1:5-8

The last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, is intriguing because of its imagery and use of symbols, dreams, numbers and mysterious characters. For two millennia, readers have tried to decipher clues to the future in this book, especially regarding the end times. Contemporary Catholic theology, however, focuses on the meaning of this text for its first readers, at the end of the first century. These early Christians were experiencing intense persecution under the Roman Empire and were tempted to abandon their new found faith in Jesus Christ in order to save their lives. The author of the Book of Revelation invites them to be faithful, even unto death.

The first verses we read this Sunday should be understood in that light. First, the author gives three titles to Jesus. He is called “the faithful witness”, since Jesus was indeed faithful to the end. His disciples must learn to imitate his fidelity on the Cross. The author also calls Jesus the “firstborn from the dead”. Because of his resurrection, Jesus who was dead is now alive. Calling him “the first-born”, implies that those who die with Jesus will live with him beyond death. Finally, Jesus receives the title “king of the kings of the earth”. Early Christians were persecuted by the Roman emperor who claimed to be the sovereign of the earth. The Book of Revelation dares to proclaim Jesus’ sovereignty even over the Roman emperor. Christ's power exceeds that of Nero. Christians are called, therefore, to trust in the ultimate victory of Christ.

The text continues by recalling what Jesus has done for us. In delivering us from our sin, he makes of us “a kingdom and priests for his God and Father”. Nero claimed to be both king and high priest of his empire. But in Jesus, all believers are priests and kings. They share the kingship of Christ and participate in his ministry of reconciliation. Nero’s titles should have no value in the eyes of believers.

Finally, the author proclaims the coming of Christ in glory. He will come “from the clouds” – a sign of his true divinity over and against the false gods that the Roman emperor worshipped. When he comes, “all men will see... and all the tribes of the earth mourn”, because they will finally understand that they had rejected the true God of the universe.

All this leads to the conclusion, placed in the mouth of the risen Christ appearing in a dream: “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet, omega is the last. This means that Christ embraces all reality: he is the master of the whole story from the beginning to the end.

The Book of Revelation does not “reveal” hidden information about the end of time, but rather the meaning of the present moment. It nourishes the great hope that abides in the Christian heart. Tortured in Roman prisons, mangled by lions in arenas, crucified by the dozen along open roads, the first Christians gave up their lives in the hands of Jesus because they truly believed he had opened the path to true glory. Two thousand years later, this message of hope continues to resonate in our ears and in our hearts.

The Word before the text

Read I Thessalonians 2:7-13

When hearing the expression “The Word of God,” one often thinks of the Bible, of the written text we call the Sacred Scriptures. This is quite normal, but it is good to remember that this “Word” existed before any text was written. The last verse of today’s reading reminds us of this fact.

Paul praises the Thessalonians because they have received his teaching not as a “human word” but as the “Word of God.” Yet Paul had no text to show them at that time. In fact, this letter to the Thessalonians is the first text of what would eventually become the New Testament. During the following years, new texts would be added: Paul’s other letters, and letters from other Apostles, as well as the writings of the four Evangelists, the story of the Acts of the Apostles, and John’s vision which we call the Book of Revelation. Yet before any of these texts were written, Paul was proclaiming the Word of God.

To what then is he referring? He is referring to the stories the other Apostles have taught him and to his own conversion experience when he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. That is the content of his preaching and teaching. The stories about Jesus that are being shared, the reflection of the young Christian community as it gathers to pray and celebrate the Lord, this is what makes up the Word of God before the New Testament was written. The Church, God’s own people, is the cradle in which was born the New Testament.

If the Church gave birth to the Scriptures, it is normal that the Church also be the place where this text is proclaimed, studied and prayed. This is not to say that one shouldn’t read the Bible alone. But it reminds us that, even when we do read it alone, the community which gave birth to the text remains the community of understanding and interpretation which can hand it on in faithfulness.

My grandmother had a box of photographs. When we opened this box, we wanted her near us, for she alone knew the stories “behind” the pictures: she could name the people in the pictures and explain their meaning. Pictures are like footprints left by people and events that, though they belong to the past, still have an impact on our lives today.

The Bible is like a box of pictures giving witness to the great adventure we call Salvation history; and the Church is like my grandmother who took the pictures, who understands their meaning, who uses them to help us enter into the living story of wonderful characters, the first of which is the Lord Jesus himself.

Believing in the “Word of God” is more than recognizing the truth of a text. It means entering into the living history which the text is telling, in communion with the Church which gave it birth.