Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter
by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“Who is wise enough to understand these things?
Who is intelligent enough to know them?
Straight are the paths of the Lord,
the just walk in them,
but sinners stumble in them”.

(HOSEA 14:10)

If the Gospel of John is to be believed – and it is – Jesus judges no one. God judges no one.

That needs to be put into context. It doesn’t mean there aren’t any moral judgments and that our actions are indifferent to moral scrutiny. There is judgment, except it doesn’t work the way it is fantasized inside the popular mind. According to what Jesus is quoted as saying in John’s Gospel, judgment works this way: God’s light, God’s truth, and God’s spirit come into the world. We then judge ourselves according to how we live in the face of them: God’s light has come into the world, but we can choose to live in darkness. That’s our decision, our judgment. God’s truth has been revealed, but we can choose to live in falsehood, in lies. That’s our decision, our judgment to make.

So then, this is how judgment happens: God’s spirit (charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and chastity) has been revealed. We can choose to live inside the virtues of that spirit, or we can choose to live instead inside their opposites (self-indulgence, sexual vice, rivalry, antagonism, bad temper, quarrels, drunkenness, and factionalism).
 

One choice leads to a life with God, the other leads away from God. And that choice is ours to make. It doesn’t come from the outside. We judge ourselves. God judges no one. God doesn’t need to” (28).

Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter

by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“When your days have been completed and you rest with your ancestors,
I will raise up your offspring after you,
sprung from your loins,
and I will establish his kingdom.”

(2 SAMUEL 7:12)

“Someday you will have to face your Maker! We’ve all heard that phrase. The hour will come when we will stand before God with no place to hide, no room to rationalize, and no excuses to offer for our weaknesses and sin. We will stand in a searing light, naked and exposed, and all we ever did, good and bad, will stand with us in that light. That prospect, however vaguely felt, makes for a dark corner in every person’s mind.

But searing judgment of our souls is meant to be a daily occurrence, not a single traumatic moment at the end of our lives. We are meant to bring ourselves, with all our complexities and weaknesses, into God’s full light every day. Genuine prayer brings us into that searing light.   

We are meant to face God like this every day, not just at the moment of our death. So we should set aside time each day to put ourselves into God’s presence without words and without images, where – naked, stripped of everything, silent, exposed, hiding nothing, completely vulnerable – we simply sit, full face, before God’s judgment and mercy.
 

By doing this, we will preempt any traumatic encounter at the time of our death and, more importantly, we will begin – here and now – to enjoy more fully God’s emphatic embrace” (27).   

Daybreaks: Daily Reflections for Lent & Easter
by Ron Rolheiser, OMI

“For what great nation is there that has gods so close to it as the Lord,
our God, is to us whenever we call upon him?”.

(DEUTERONOMY 4:7)

The Gospels recount an incident where Jesus goes to the synagogue on a Sabbath, stands to read, and quotes a text from Isaiah – except he doesn’t quote it fully. He omits a part that would have been known to his listeners. It describes Isaiah’s vision of what will be the sign that God has finally broken into the world and irrevocably changed things.

For Isaiah, the sign that God is now ruling the earth will be good news for the poor, consolation for the broken-hearted, freedom for the enslaved, grace abundant for everyone, and vengeance on the wicked. Notice, though, when Jesus quotes this, he leaves out the part about vengeance and seeing the wicked punished.

In heaven we will be given what we’re owed and more (unmerited gifts, forgiveness we don’t deserve, joy beyond imagining), but it seems we will not be given that catharsis we so much want here on earth: the “joy” of seeing the wicked punished.
 

We know we need God’s mercy, but if grace is true for us, it has to be true for everyone. If forgiveness is given to us, it must be given to everybody. And if God does”not avenge our misdeeds, God must not avenge the misdeed of others, either. Such is the logic of grace and such is the love of God, to whom we must attune ourselves” (26).