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

“Be merciful, just as [also] your Father is merciful”.

(LUKE 6:36)

“In the letters of St. Paul, the apostle makes a distinction between life in the flesh as opposed to life in the Spirit.

Life in the flesh is characterized by lewd conduct, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, bickering, jealousy, outbursts of rage, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factionalism, envy, drunkenness, and orgies (see Galatians 5:16-21). When these exist in our lives, Paul cautions, we may not delude ourselves into thinking we are living inside of God’s spirit.

‘In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law’ (Galatians 5:22-23). It is only when these qualities are manifest in our lives that we may understand ourselves as walking in true discipleship.

For Paul, the litmus test for discipleship is not a single moral issue but rather whole way of living that radiates more love than selfishness, more joy than bitterness, more peace than factionalism, more patience and respect than negative judgment and gossip, more empathy than anger, and more willingness to sweat the blood of sacrifice than to give in to the temptations of the moment.

Christian discipleship is not just about our actions; it’s also about our hearts. The essence of Christian discipleship lies in putting on the heart of Christ. Proper morality, defense of truth, and life-giving Church practices follow from that – and, when rooted in that, they become respectful, forgiving, and loving” (16).

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

“So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me,
a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength
that comes from God”.

(2 TIMOTHY 1:8)

Today, among many of us churchgoers, there is growing propensity to self-protect rather than risk crucifixion for the world. We are well-intentioned in this, but, good intentions notwithstanding, our actions are the opposite of Jesus. He loved the world enough to let himself be crucified rather than self-protect. 

Jesus’ disciples were forever trying to protect him from various groups they deemed unworthy of his presence, and Jesus was forever clear that he didn’t need or want to be protected. 

More importantly, his disciples were also trying to protect him against persons and things they deemed as threats to him. What was Jesus’ response to this effort at protection? We have his words: no more of this! But we don’t have the tone of those words. Were they spoken in anger, as sharp reprimand? Were they spoken in frustration, recognizing that Peter, the rock, the future pope, had so badly misunderstood his message? Or were they spoken in that sad tone a mother uses when she tells her children to stop fighting even as the resignation in her voice betrays the fact that she knows they never will? Whatever the tone, the message is clear that his followers didn’t understand one of the central things about their master: Jesus had spent his entire ministry healing people, including healing diseased ears so that people might hear again. And, on his last night on earth the leader of his apostles cuts off the ear of someone in an attempt to protect him.
 

Everything about Jesus speaks of vulnerability rather than self-protection. He was born in a manger, a feeding trough, a place where animals come to eat, and he ends up on a table, ‘flesh for the life of the world,’ to be eaten up by the world (JN 6:51). The first words out of his mouth call for metanoia, the opposite of paranoia. In the end, he gives himself over to crucifixion rather than to self-protection. That was Jesus’ response to a world that grossly misunderstood him and violently mistreated him. He opened his arms in vulnerability rather than closed his fists in self-defense. 

Ideally, that’s how we should respond when the world is unfair to us. Unlike Peter, who failed to remember Jesus’ message and instinctively struck with his sword, don’t let threats erase what was central to Jesus’ teaching by responding in a manner antithetical to the gospel, hostility for hostility, immaturity for immaturity” (14-15).

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

“For with the Lord is mercy
with him is plenteous redemption”.

(PSALM 130:7)

“When we look at church life today, especially within parishes, it is obvious that it is made up of much more than only the core, committed congregation, namely those who participate regularly in church life and accept (at least for the main part) the dogmatic and moral teachings of their churches.

The church also contains a wide variety of the less-engaged: people who practice occasionally, people who accept some of its teachings, guests who visit our churches, people who don’t explicitly commit but are sympathetic to the Church and offer it various kinds of support, and; not least, people who link themselves to God in more private ways, those who are spiritual but not religious.

This does not mean that there are tiers within discipleship, where some are called to a higher holiness and other to a lower one. The Church may never be divided into the perfect and less perfect, the better and the half-baked, full participation and partial participation. Each individual chooses how deep he or she will go. Some go deeper than others, though everyone is meant to go its full depth.

We are all around Jesus in our different ways, and we must be careful not to judge each other” (9).