Doing after listening, 9th Sunday of the year

“Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’23 Then I will declare to them solemnly, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’” (Mt 7:22-23)

Few texts of the Scripture sound so intimidating. One can spend one’s life doing what Christians are supposed to do, only to find that God does not even know him. How can that happen? Are these the words of a merciful God or the words of a strict slave-driver? Where is God’s mercy in these words? How does one pass from driving out demons in God’s name to “evildoers” that the Lord does not even know? If good activity does not define the good follower, what does?

We can only understand these words if we continue reading the passage of founding our lives on a “rock”. Both sections are the two sides of the same coin. It is easy to accept that listening and not doing is not enough. It is indeed like building a house on sand. We cannot found our lives on mere ideals or a simple doctrine. A view of life, no matter how true, does not become fully true until it takes up flesh and history in our lives.

God did not allow Himself that luxury either. His Word was not only ideas and teachings, it took flesh in our Lord. And His love took flesh in His deeds. In the same vein, we need to walk to talk, lest we leave the talk unfinished.

But alternatively, we may fall into the opposite error: Doing and not listening. We may assist in all the religious activities and engage in the deepest social commitment, but if it does not spring from a attitude of listening, it is not even weak, it is empty. One does not even need faith to do what Christians are supposed to do. But that is not really doing, it would be just imitating or acting.

Listening and not doing is not really listening. Doing and not listening is not really listening. Contemplation without action is mere discipline. Action without contemplation is mere human activity.

St. Paul says something similar, “For we consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” (Rm 3:28). At the end of the day, it is not the works, the activities, no matter how frenetic and stressful they might be, that have enough power to justify our existence. Only God gives true meaning to our activities. Only God’s grace justifies. Only God’s friendship makes us more just.

The verb “to know” closes both the gospel and the first reading. In the first reading idolatrers are said to follow gods they don’t know, “a curse if you (…) follow other gods, whom you have not known.” (Dt 11:28). . In the gospel, God does not know the “activitists” nor the devout prayerful people who spend their lives in the unilateral prayer, “Lord, Lord”.

A friend in need is a friend in deed; but the first task of a friend is to listen. Friendship needs both the listening and the actual commitment. A friend who does not listen, even if he does what he thinks his friend needs, is not a real friend. He is just someone who projects his needs and solutions onto others. Doing favours can also be a way of avoiding taking the person seriously.

To be friends of God, to enjoy His favor, we have to be make ourselves known to Him, by truly listening. That is how grace works. Christian living is not a bunch of activities we have to fulfill. It is a relationship we need to establish. A relationship that becomes flesh in our relationships with others.

Dwelling in the Trinity: 7th Tuesday of Easter

Very rarely the gospels give us a glimpse of the intimacy of Jesus with the Father. The gospel of John gives us a treat in today’s gospel:

“And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.” (Jn 17:11)

What is remarkable is what we find in the middle of this intimacy: ourselves. The love that circulates between the Father and the Son is not a private exclusive affair but an inclusive centre of gravity that “draws all men” to Him.

In the moment when He is passing away from this world, He prays, and He prays mainly for those that were given to Him: “keep them in Your name… so that they may be one…” Jesus does not pray for the world, but He prays for them.

The condition to be included in this prayer is simply to believe that He came from the Father (Jn 17:8). We may suspect that this is an easy condition for us to fulfil because we have been believing it for years. But believing is not an exercise of the mind. It is a way of living. If we do not live according to our beliefs, we will end up believing according to our lives.

But if we do live according to the belief that Jesus came from and went to the Father and our lives are just a journey after His footsteps, then we have found our place in the intimacy of the Father and the Son. What else would we need?

Lesson on prayer. Tuesday, 1st week of Lent

What is the best method of prayer? Jesus did not start a workshop on prayer when the disciples asked Him to teach them to pray. Simplicity continues to be the first rule: “do not use many words,” as if God depended on our words to listen. Moreover, we don’t really pray to change God’s mind, but to change our hearts.

Prayer is, before anything else, asking God for what we need. But, as St. Paul said, we do not know how to pray. We do not know what is good for us. But it is in asking for what we think is good for us, that we learn what is really good for us. And Jesus knew that.

Indeed we don’t really need many things. Only this, that His kingdom come, that His will be done, our basic needs for the day, forgiveness, for which, we in turn need the capacity to forgive, and that we will never be tempted beyond our strength.

However, no matter how many times we recite the Lord’s prayer, our prayers still seem to be cluttered with so many words regarding things we still think we need. We continue to pray to change our hearts, to make our hearts good — a heart that truly desires good things.

Prayer is therefore a crucial Lenten practice because it is more about hearts transforming than about making God comply to our shortsighted interests.