{"id":6362,"date":"2014-04-19T17:41:57","date_gmt":"2014-04-19T16:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=6362"},"modified":"2015-12-18T17:33:18","modified_gmt":"2015-12-18T17:33:18","slug":"easter-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=6362","title":{"rendered":"Easter 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Jesus Before Pilate<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Few things sit as deep within us as does the desire for freedom. We are not always sure exactly\u00a0what freedom means, but we are ever resistant to whatever restrains, limits, or coerces us. We do\u00a0not like being forced to do things, being told what to do, or having outside forces limit our choices.\u00a0We value, more deeply than most anything else, our freedom.Or, at least so it would seem. On the surface, this is true. At a deeper level, however, our desire\u00a0for freedom is obfuscated by many things, especially by the fact that, too often, we have freedom\u00a0confused with emancipation. Our struggle for freedom is focused rather narrowly on those forces\u00a0outside of us which unfairly bind or limit us. But victory over these forces, emancipation, is only a\u00a0small step towards genuine freedom. \u00a0Today, in the Western world, we are, for the most part, emancipated, but we are far from free. We\u00a0have been able to throw off most of the shackles of external tyranny, but we remain very much\u00a0the prisoner of our own fears, our own wounds, our own angers, our own attachments, and our\u00a0own obsessions. We are emancipated, but not free.\u00a0Let us look at a picture of a rare freedom: Jesus, at his trial, standing, bound and stripped, before\u00a0Pontius Pilate.\u00a0In all of literature, nowhere do you see an image of a freer human being. Not even in Socrates\u00a0before his accusers, or in the illustrious, stoic heros and heroines of great literature, nor indeedeven in the deaths of martyrs, do we see anyone more free. Jesus stands before Pilate as a truly\u00a0free human being.\u00a0And there is a great paradox in this. Jesus stands before Pilate in chains, captive, bound, whipped,\u00a0despised, ridiculed, humanly impotent, unable to do a single thing to free himself. Yet he is free\u00a0in a way that even his critics envy.\u00a0One of those critics is Pilate himself and he too, ironically, ends up admiring the man he\u00a0condemns. Pilate has an interesting exchange with Jesus. When he first begins to question him,\u00a0Jesus refuses to answer. Pilate then tries to intimidate him: \u201cDon\u2019t you know that I have power\u00a0over you, that I can put you to death or set you free?\u201d\u00a0Jesus, bound, externally powerless, answers in words that might aptly be paraphrased this way:\u00a0\u201cYou have no power over me whatsoever. You do not adjudicate death and freedom. That power\u00a0lies beyond you. You have no power to kill me or to set me free because, first of all, in my case, I\u00a0am already dead \u2026 and free from you because of that! In the garden of Gethsemane, I gave my\u00a0life away, gave it away of my own accord. Nobody takes my life from me. I lay it down and I take it\u00a0up. God, alone, is Lord of life and freedom and once a person submits to that then no human\u00a0person, no tyrant, no despot, no Hitler, can take his or her life and freedom away. You can kill me\u00a0\u2026 but I am already dead!\u201dPilate, to his credit, understood and the Scriptures tell us that, afterwards, he was anxious to free\u00a0Jesus.\u00a0Jesus, before Pilate, was free, but not emancipated. We, today, are emancipated, but not free. As\u00a0we struggle for freedom, we might well contemplate that image of rare freedom, Jesus before\u00a0Pilate, externally bound but internally free, telling the world that no human power can ultimately\u00a0coerce the heart.\u00a0However as we contemplate that image, we need to follow through on why Jesus was free in this\u00a0deep way. Pilate had no power to take his life from him only because he had already given his life\u00a0to his Father. Through obedience he became free, through submission to the God of heaven heescaped the power of the gods of earth.\u00a0Too often today our notions of freedom are too adolescent to understand this. We are emotionally\u00a0resistant to all notions of obedience, submission, another\u2019s will, and sometimes even to the very\u00a0idea of Someone being above in such a way that puts us below. But until we give ourselves over in\u00a0obedience to what is ultimate, higher, we will constantly find ourselves at the mercy of lesser gods\u00a0whose altars perennially demand human sacrifice.\u00a0C.S.Lewis once said: The harshness of God is kinder than the softness of human beings and God\u2019s\u00a0compulsion is our liberation. We see exactly how true that is when Jesus appears before Pilate<\/p>\n

T H E \u00a0D E S E R T \u2013 T H E P L A C E O F G O D \u2019 S C L O S E N E S S<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/p>\n

The Desert \u2013 the place of God\u2019s Closeness\u00a0In her biography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day shares how, shortly after her conversion to\u00a0Catholicism, she went through a painful, desert time. She had just given birth to her daughter\u00a0and her decision to have the child baptised, coupled with her profession of faith, meant the end\u00a0of her relationship with a man she deeply loved. She suddenly found herself alone. All her old\u00a0supports had been cut off and she was left with no money, no job, few friends, no practical\u00a0dream, and no companionship from the person she loved the most deeply in this world. For a\u00a0while she just stumbled on, trusting that things would soon get better. They didn\u2019t. She remained\u00a0in this desert.
\nOne day, not knowing what else to do, she took a train from New York to Washington to spend a\u00a0day praying at the National Shrine of Our Lady. Her prayer there was wrenching, naked. She\u00a0describes how she laid bare her helplessness, spilling out her confusion, her doubts, her fears,\u00a0and her temptations to bitterness and despair. In essence, she said to God: \u201cI have given up\u00a0everything that ever supported me, in trust, to you. I have nothing left to hold on to. You need to\u00a0do something for me, soon. I can\u2019t keep this up much longer!\u201d She was, biblically speaking, in the\u00a0desert \u2013 alone, without support, helpless before a chaos that threatened to overwhelm her \u2013 and,\u00a0as was the case with Jesus, both in the desert and in Gethsemane, God \u201csent angels to minister to\u00a0her.\u201d God steadied her in the chaos. She caught a train back to New York and, that very night, as\u00a0walked up to her apartment she saw a man sitting there. His name was Peter Maurin and the rest\u00a0is history. Together they started the Catholic Worker. We should not be surprised that her prayer\u00a0had such a tangible result. The desert, scripture assures us, is the place where God is specially\u00a0near.\u00a0Martin Luther King shares a similar story. In, Stride Towards Freedom, he relates how one night a\u00a0hate-filled phone call shook him to his depths and plunged him into a desert of fear. Here are his
\nwords:\u00a0An angry voice said:\u201dListen, nigger, we\u2019ve taken all we want from you; before next week you\u2019ll be\u00a0sorry you ever came to Montgomery.\u201d I hung up, but I couldn\u2019t sleep. It seemed that all of my fears\u00a0had come down on me at once. I had reached the saturation point. I got out of bed and began to\u00a0walk the floor. Finally I went to the kitchen and heated a pot of coffee. I was ready to give up. With\u00a0my coffee sitting untouched before me I tried to think of a way to move out of the picture without\u00a0appearing a coward. In this state of exhaustion, when my courage had all but gone, I decided to\u00a0take my problem to God. With my head in my hand, I bowed over the kitchen table and prayed\u00a0aloud. The words I spoke to God that midnight are still vivid in my memory.\u00a0\u201cI am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. The people are looking to\u00a0me for leadership and if I stand before them without strength and courage, they too will falter. I\u00a0am at the end of my powers. I have nothing left. I\u2019ve come to the point where I can\u2019t take it alone.\u201d\u00a0At that moment I experienced the presence of the Divine as I had never experienced Him before.\u00a0God sends his angels to minister to us when we are in the desert and in the garden of\u00a0Gethsemane. This incident in Martin Luther King\u2019s life demonstrates how. \u00a0The desert, as we know, is the place where, stripped of all that normally nourishes and supports\u00a0us, we are exposed to chaos, raw fear, and demons of every kind. In the desert we are exposed,\u00a0body and soul, made vulnerable to be overwhelmed by chaos and temptations of every kind. But,\u00a0precisely because we are so stripped of everything we normally rely on, this is also a privileged\u00a0moment for grace. Why? Because all the defense mechanisms, support systems, and distractions\u00a0that we normally surround ourselves with so as to keep chaos and fear at bay work at the same\u00a0time to keep much of God\u2019s grace at bay. What we use to buoy us up wards off both chaos and\u00a0grace, demons and the divine alike. Conversely, when we are helpless we are open. That is why\u00a0the desert is both the place of chaos and the place of God\u2019s closeness. It is no accident that\u00a0Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King felt God\u2019s presence so unmistakably \u00a0just at that point in\u00a0their lives where they had lost everything that could support them. They were in the desert.Scripture assures us that it is there that God can send angels to minister to us.<\/p>\n

Finding \u00a0the Strength To \u00a0Reach Across Differences<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a>
\nWe are rarely at our best. Too often what shows forth in our lives is not what\u2019s best in us: love,\u00a0generosity, a big heart. More often than not, our lives radiate irritation, pettiness, and a small\u00a0heart.\u00a0Too often, we find ourselves consumed by petty irritations, conflicts, frustrations, and angers.\u00a0Each of these might be small in itself but, cumulatively, they take the sunshine and delight out of\u00a0our lives, like mosquitoes spoiling a picnic. Then, instead of feeling grateful, gracious, and\u00a0magnanimous, we feel paranoid, fearful, and irritable and we end up acting out of a cold,\u00a0irritated, paranoid part of ourselves rather than out of our real selves.\u00a0Why do we do that? Because we are asleep to who and what we really are, asleep in a double way:\u00a0When St. Luke describes Jesus\u2019 agony in the garden, he tells us that after Jesus had undergone a\u00a0powerful drama, sweating blood so as to give his life over in love, he turned to his disciples (who\u00a0were supposed to be watching and praying with him) and found them asleep. However he uses a\u00a0curious expression to describe why they were asleep. They were asleep, he says, not because they\u00a0were tired and it was late, but they were asleep \u201cout of sheer sorrow\u201d.\u00a0That says a couple of things: First, that the disciples are asleep out of depression. Depression is\u00a0what is preventing them from seeing straight. But they are also asleep to what is deepest inside\u00a0of them, namely, that they carry the image and likeness of God. Jesus was not asleep to that and,\u00a0because of this awareness, was able precisely to be big of heart.
\nAs Christians we believe that what ultimately defines us and gives us our dignity is the image and\u00a0likeness of God inside us. This is our deepest identity, our real self. Inside each of us there is a\u00a0piece of divinity, a god or goddess, a person who carries an inviolable dignity, with a heart as big\u00a0as God\u2019s.\u00a0And that great dignity is not meant to be a source of wrongful pride and a justification for making\u00a0an unhealthy assertion with our lives. Sadly, too often it does and a rather simple commentary on\u00a0the state of our planet might be to say that this is what things look like when you have six billion\u00a0people walking around with each one of them thinking himself or herself as God.\u00a0But our great dignity, the Imago Dei inside each of us, is meant rather to be a center from which\u00a0we can draw vision, grace, and strength to act in a way that, ironically, precisely helps us to\u00a0swallow our pride.\u00a0We see this in Jesus. In a famous text, St. John tells us that at the last supper, Jesus got up from\u00a0the table and began to wash the feet of his disciples, against their protests. That gesture, washing\u00a0someone else\u2019s feet, has classically been preached on as an act of humility. It was that, but in the\u00a0context of the Gospel of John, it is something more. It was a particular kind of humility, one that\u00a0requires having a huge, huge heart and swallowing a lot of pride. When Jesus washes his3\/28\/2014 Finding the Strength to Reach Across Differences \u00a0disciples feet in John\u2019s Gospel and tells us he is setting an example for us to imitate, he is inviting\u00a0us to have the strength to bend down in understanding and wash the feet of those whom, for all\u00a0kinds of reasons, we would rather not have anything to do with. It is akin to having Pro-Life and\u00a0Pro-Choice, strident conservatives and strident liberals, fundamentalists and atheists, wash each\u00a0others\u2019 feet. Normally we don\u2019t have the strength to do that, there is too much pride and desire for\u00a0righteousness at stake.
\nSo how could Jesus do it? He could do it because he wasn\u2019t asleep to who and what he was. In a\u00a0stunning description of what is going on inside of him when he got up and took the basin and
\ntowel to do this. John writes: \u201cJesus, knowing that he had come from God and was returning to\u00a0God, and that the Father had put everything into his hands, got up from the table and removed\u00a0his outer garments.\u201d (John 13,3-5).\u00a0Jesus took off his outer garments (which symbolize precisely all those things, including our\u00a0everyday irritations and angers, which block the view of our deeper selves) to show us his deeper\u00a0reality, namely, the fact that he had come from God and was going back to God. On the strength\u00a0of that awareness, he could swallow all the pride that he needed to in order to reach out in\u00a0understanding, forgiveness, and love, beyond wound, irritation, and moral righteousness.\u00a0When we are in touch with that fact that we too have \u201ccome from God and are going back to God\u201d\u00a0then, and only then, can we too swallow enough pride to be genuinely loving.<\/p>\n

Gethsmane \u2013 The \u00a0Spirit is Willing \u00a0But The \u00a0Flesh is Weak<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Fifth in a six-part Lenten Series)
\n\u201cHer beauty in the moonlight overthrew you!\u201d Leonard Cohen coined that phrase in a melancholic\u00a0poem, Hallelujah, and it reflects how certain things can seduce us so that we end up breaking our\u00a0word, our commitments, and even our integrity. Lot of things, it seems, can overthrow us.\u00a0Beauty, sex, ambition, jealousy, fear, tension, wounds, anger, despair, impatience, frustration,\u00a0hatred, tiredness, and even misguided religious fervour can overthrow us. The spirit is willing,\u00a0says Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but the flesh is weak.\u00a0And it is! The simple fact is that too often we cannot actualize ourselves as we would like. We\u2019re\u00a0never as good as we\u2019d like to be, never as stable as we\u2019d like to be, never as much at peace as we\u2019d\u00a0like to be,never as bright as we\u2019d like to be, and never as beautiful as we\u2019d like to be. We always\u00a0fall short somehow.\u00a0One shortfall is moral: When we\u2019re honest we know the truth of St. Paul\u2019s words: \u201cI cannot\u00a0understand my own behaviour. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the\u00a0things I hate.\u201d (Romans 7, 15-16)
\nHow true! We\u2019re a mystery to ourselves and, often, a disappointment as well. There\u2019s a universal\u00a0truth in the old Protestant dictum: \u201cIt\u2019s not a question of are you a sinner, it\u2019s only a question of\u00a0`What\u2019s your sin?\u2019\u201d\u00a0But it isn\u2019t always about sin. The flesh is also weak in terms of simple adequacy. A generation ago,\u00a0Anna Blaman put it this way:\u00a0\u201cI realized that it is simply impossible for a human being to be and remain `good\u2019 or `pure\u2019. If, for\u00a0instance, I wanted to be attentive in one direction, it could only be at the cost of neglecting another. If I\u00a0gave my heart to one thing, I left another in the cold. \u2026 No day and no hour goes by without my being
\nguilty of some inadequacy. We never do enough, and what we do is never well enough done. \u2026 except\u00a0being inadequate, which we are good at, because it is the way we are made. This is true of me and of\u00a0everyone else.\u201d\u00a0Henri Nouwen, speaking more for our generation, has a gentler, though not-less clear, expression\u00a0of this:\u00a0\u201cOne of the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives is that we are busy. We experience our days as\u00a0filled with things to do, people to meet, projects to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and\u00a0appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like over packed suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we\u00a0are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished\u00a0tasks, unfulfilled promises, and unrealized proposals. There is always something else we should have\u00a0remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus,\u00a0although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations.\u00a0We\u2019re weak and we fall short, not so much in intention as in execution. Generally it\u2019s not because\u00a0of ill will that we end up experiencing what St. Paul, Anna Blaman, and Henri Nouwen so\u00a0accurately describe. We don\u2019t want to be unfaithful, unreliable, neglectful, irresponsible, or\u00a0inadequate. What\u2019s truest inside us wants to keep watch with Jesus in Gethsemane, wants to\u00a0possess the moral greatness of a Mother Teresa, and wants to be known and respected for\u00a0fidelity, reliability, and adequacy. The spirit, mostly, is willing, but, as Jesus warns in the Garden of\u00a0Gethsemane, \u201cthe flesh is weak\u201d.\u00a0What\u2019s to be learned from this? What does the Garden of Gethsemane have to teach us as we\u00a0struggle with weakness and inadequacy?\u00a0That we don\u2019t overcome our inadequacies by willpower alone, by simply willing that we might be\u00a0better. We change our lives through grace and community. In the Garden an angel came and\u00a0strengthened Jesus. That same angel has to come and strengthen us.\u00a0In Gethsemane, Jesus didn\u2019t just warn us about the never-ending struggle between good-intention\u00a0and good execution, between desiring to be good and actually being so. He underwent the\u00a0struggle himself. His spirit was willing, but his flesh, like ours, was full of resistance. Ultimately he\u00a0triumphed. However that triumph did not come about simply because he willed to remain faithful\u00a0(though he did and that was a necessary part of the triumph) but because \u201can angel came and\u00a0strengthened him\u201d, that is, divine power eventually did for him what he could not do for himself.\u00a0A lot of things can, and do, overthrow us, despite the fact that we want to be good. One of the\u00a0lessons of Gethsemane is that we cannot overcome this simply by renewed willpower and good\u00a0intention. We need, in the struggle, to surrender to grace and community in such a way that God\u2019s\u00a0angels can come and give us what we can\u2019t give ourselves, namely, goodness, wholeness, and\u00a0adequacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

GETHSEMANE \u2013 THE SPIRIT IS WILLING BUT THE FLESH IS WEAK<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

(Fifth in a six-part Lenten Series)<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cHer beauty in the moonlight overthrew you!\u201d<\/i>\u00a0Leonard Cohen coined that phrase in a melancholic poem, Hallelujah, and it reflects how certain things can seduce us so that we end up breaking our word, our commitments, and even our integrity. Lot of things, it seems, can overthrow us.<\/p>\n

Beauty, sex, ambition, jealousy, fear, tension, wounds, anger, despair, impatience, frustration, hatred, tiredness, and even misguided religious fervour can overthrow us. The spirit is willing, says Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, but the flesh is weak.<\/p>\n

And it is! The simple fact is that too often we cannot actualize ourselves as we would like. We\u2019re never as good as we\u2019d like to be, never as stable as we\u2019d like to be, never as much at peace as we\u2019d like to be,never as bright as we\u2019d like to be, and never as beautiful as we\u2019d like to be. We always fall short somehow.<\/p>\n

One shortfall is moral: When we\u2019re honest we know the truth of St. Paul\u2019s words:\u00a0\u201cI cannot understand my own behaviour. I fail to carry out the things I want to do, and I find myself doing the things I hate.\u201d<\/i>\u00a0(Romans 7, 15-16)<\/p>\n

How true! We\u2019re a mystery to ourselves and, often, a disappointment as well. There\u2019s a universal truth in the old Protestant dictum:\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not a question of are you a sinner, it\u2019s only a question of `What\u2019s your sin?\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t always about sin. The flesh is also weak in terms of simple adequacy. A generation ago, Anna Blaman put it this way:<\/p>\n

\u201cI realized that it is simply impossible for a human being to be and remain `good\u2019 or `pure\u2019. If, for instance, I wanted to be attentive in one direction, it could only be at the cost of neglecting another. If I gave my heart to one thing, I left another in the cold. \u2026 No day and no hour goes by without my being guilty of some inadequacy. We never do enough, and what we do is never well enough done. \u2026 except being inadequate, which we are good at, because it is the way we are made. This is true of me and of everyone else.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

Henri Nouwen, speaking more for our generation, has a gentler, though not-less clear, expression of this:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most obvious characteristics of our daily lives is that we are busy. We experience our days as filled with things to do, people to meet, projects to finish, letters to write, calls to make, and appointments to keep. Our lives often seem like over packed suitcases bursting at the seams. In fact, we are almost always aware of being behind schedule. There is a nagging sense that there are unfinished tasks, unfulfilled promises, and unrealized proposals. There is always something else we should have remembered, done, or said. There are always people we did not speak to, write to, or visit. Thus, although we are very busy, we also have a lingering feeling of never really fulfilling our obligations.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

We\u2019re weak and we fall short, not so much in intention as in execution. Generally it\u2019s not because of ill will that we end up experiencing what St. Paul, Anna Blaman, and Henri Nouwen so accurately describe. We don\u2019t want to be unfaithful, unreliable, neglectful, irresponsible, or inadequate. What\u2019s truest inside us wants to keep watch with Jesus in Gethsemane, wants to possess the moral greatness of a Mother Teresa, and wants to be known and respected for fidelity, reliability, and adequacy. The spirit, mostly, is willing, but, as Jesus warns in the Garden of Gethsemane,\u00a0\u201cthe flesh is weak\u201d.<\/i><\/p>\n

What\u2019s to be learned from this? What does the Garden of Gethsemane have to teach us as we struggle with weakness and inadequacy?<\/p>\n

That we don\u2019t overcome our inadequacies by willpower alone, by simply willing that we might be better. We change our lives through grace and community. In the Garden an angel came and strengthened Jesus. That same angel has to come and strengthen us.<\/p>\n

In Gethsemane, Jesus didn\u2019t just warn us about the never-ending struggle between good-intention and good execution, between desiring to be good and actually being so. He underwent the struggle himself. His spirit was willing, but his flesh, like ours, was full of resistance. Ultimately he triumphed. However that triumph did not come about simply because he willed to remain faithful (though he did and that was a necessary part of the triumph) but because \u201can angel came and strengthened him\u201d, that is, divine power eventually did for him what he could not do for himself.<\/p>\n

A lot of things can, and do, overthrow us, despite the fact that we want to be good. One of the lessons of Gethsemane is that we cannot overcome this simply by renewed willpower and good intention. We need, in the struggle, to surrender to grace and community in such a way that God\u2019s angels can come and give us what we can\u2019t give ourselves, namely, goodness, wholeness, and adequacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

G E T H S E M A N E \u2013 As the Place We Are Put To The Test<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Fourth in a six-part Lenten Series)\u00a0http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/strong>
\n\u201cA common soldier dies without fear, but Jesus died afraid.\u201d Iris Murdoch wrote those words and they\u00a0teach one of the lessons of Gethsemane. The Garden of Gethsemane is also the place where we\u00a0are put to the test. What does this mean?\u00a0The great spiritual writer, Henri Nouwen, once wrote a book (In Memoriam) within which he tried\u00a0to come to grips with his mother\u2019s death. The manner of her death had surprised him and left\u00a0him struggling with some painful doubts and questions. Why?\u00a0His mother had lived a full life; she\u2019d died surrounded by a loving family and friends, and in her\u00a0final illness had been made as comfortable and pain-free as possible by the best of modern\u00a0medicine. What\u2019s troubling about that?\u00a0She\u2019d died struggling, it seemed, with her faith, unable to find at the most crucial moment of her\u00a0life consolation from the God she\u2019d loved and served so faithfully her whole life.\u00a0His mother, as he explains at the beginning of the book, had been a woman of exceptional faith\u00a0and goodness. He was teaching aboard when he received the phone call that she was dying.
\nFlying home to be with her, he mused naively how, painful as it was going to be, his mother\u2019s
\ndeath would be her final gift of herself and her faith to her family. A woman who had given them\u00a0the faith during her life would surely deepen that gift by the way in which she would face her\u00a0death.\u00a0But what he met in his mother and her struggles as she died was, at least to outward\u00a0appearances, very different. Far from being peaceful and serene in her faith, she fought doubt\u00a0and fear, struggling, it seemed, to continue to believe and trust what she had believed in and\u00a0trusted in her whole life. For Henri, expecting that someone of such deep faith should die\u00a0serenely and without fear, this was very disconcerting.\u00a0\u201cWhy\u201d, he asked, \u201cWould God do this? Why would someone of such deep faith seemingly struggle so badly\u00a0just before her death?\u201d\u00a0The answer eventually came to him: All her life, his mother had prayed to be like Jesus and to die\u00a0like Jesus. Shouldn\u2019t it make sense then that she should die like Jesus, struggling mightily with\u00a0doubt and darkness, having to utter, \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me!\u201d Jesus didn\u2019t die\u00a0serenely, but struggling with doubt. Shouldn\u2019t his most committed followers expect a similar\u00a0struggle?\u00a0The great mystics called this struggle \u201cthe dark night of faith\u201d, an experience within which God\u00a0purifies us by seemingly withdrawing all sense of his presence so that our thoughts and feelings\u00a0run dry and we can no longer imagine God\u2019s existence. We become, in our hearts and heads,\u00a0atheists at that moment, though something in our souls knows another reality.\u00a0And it\u2019s an awful feeling, one of the worst pains possible. Darkness, chaos, and fear overwhelm us\u00a0and we stand, literally, on the brink of nothingness, of non-existence, sensing our finitude,\u00a0littleness, and loneliness in a way we never sensed them before. We feel exactly what it would\u00a0mean to live in a universe where there is no God.
\nThe great doctors of the soul tell us that, while nobody is immune from this trial, it is generally\u00a0experienced in so radical a way only by those who are the most mature in the faith and thus more\u00a0ready to be purified by its particular fire. It\u2019s not surprising then that it is experienced so strongly\u00a0by people like Henri Nouwen\u2019s mother.\u00a0The rest of us tend to get it in bits and pieces. Little doses of what Jesus experienced on the cross\u00a0appear in our lives, reveal the fearful edges of nothingness, and let us taste for a moment what\u00a0reality would feel like if there were no God. Part of the darkness and pain of that (and why it feels\u00a0as if we are suddenly atheists) is that, in that experience, we come to realize that our thoughts\u00a0about God are not God and how we imagine faith is not faith. God is beyond what we can feel and\u00a0imagine and faith is not a warm feeling in the heart or a certainty in the mind, but a brand in the\u00a0soul \u2013 beyond thought and feeling.\u00a0One way or the other, all of us have to learn this. But we\u2019d like the lesson to come to us a bit more\u00a0gently than how it came to Jesus in his last hours. Whenever we pray the Lord\u2019s Prayer and say,\u00a0\u201cDo not put us to the test\u201d, we\u2019re asking God to spare us from this night of doubt.\u00a0When Jesus walked into the Garden of Gethsemane, he told his disciples: \u201cPray not to be put to be\u00a0put to the test.\u201d We need to pray for that because real faith can sometimes feel like doubt and\u00a0serenity can too easily turn into dark fe<\/p>\n

G E T H S E M A N E \u2013 The Place of Moral Loneliness<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Third in a six-part Lenten Series)
\nOur deepest loneliness is not sexual, but moral. More than we yearn for someone to sleep with\u00a0sexually and emotionally, we yearn for someone to sleep with morally. What we really want is a\u00a0soul mate.\u00a0What does this mean?\u00a0Ancient philosophers and mystics used to say that, before being born, each soul is kissed by God\u00a0and then goes through life always, in some dark way, remembering that kiss and measuring\u00a0everything in relation to its original sweetness.
\nInside each of us, there is a dark memory of having once been touched and caressed by hands far\u00a0gentler than our own. That caress has left a permanent imprint inside us, one so tender and good\u00a0that its memory becomes a prism through which we see everything else.\u00a0Thus we recognize love and truth outside of us precisely because they resonate with something\u00a0that is already inside us. Things \u201ctouch our hearts\u201d because they awaken a memory of that original
\nkiss. Moreover, because we have a memory of once having been perfectly touched, caressed, and\u00a0loved, every experience we meet in life falls a little short. We have already had something deeper.\u00a0When we feel frustrated, angry, betrayed, violated, or enraged it is because our outside\u00a0experience does not honour what we already know and cling to inside.
\nAnd that dark memory, of first love, creates a place inside us where we hold all that is precious\u00a0and sacred. It is the place we most guard from others, but the place where we would most want\u00a0others to enter; the place where we are the most deeply alone and the place of intimacy; the\u00a0place of innocence and the place where we are violated; the place of compassion and the place of\u00a0rage.\u00a0The yearning and pain we feel here can be called moral loneliness because we are feeling lonely\u00a0in that precise place where we feel most strongly about the right and wrong of things, that is, we\u00a0feel alone in that place where all that is most precious to us is cherished, guarded, and feels\u00a0vulnerable when it is not properly honoured.\u00a0Paradoxically, it is the place where we most want someone to enter and yet where we are most\u00a0guarded. On the one hand, we yearn to be touched inside this tender space because we already\u00a0know the joy of being caressed there. On the other hand, we don\u2019t often or easily let anyone\u00a0penetrate there. Why? Because what is most precious in us is also what is most vulnerable to\u00a0violation and we are, and rightly so, deeply cautious about whom we admit to that sacred place.\u00a0Thus, often, we feel wrenchingly alone in our deepest centre.\u00a0A fierce loneliness results \u2013 a moral aching. More deeply than we long for a sexual partner, we\u00a0long for moral affinity, for someone to visit us in that deep part where all that is most precious is\u00a0cherished and guarded.Our deepest longing is for a partner to sleep with morally, a kindred\u00a0spirit, a soul mate. Great friendships and great marriages, invariably, have this at their root, deep\u00a0moral affinity. The persons in these relationships are \u201clovers\u201d in the true sense because they sleep\u00a0with each other at the deepest level, irrespective of whether they have sex or not. In terms of\u00a0feeling, this kind of love is experienced as a \u201ccoming home\u201d, as finding a home, bone of my bone.\u00a0Sometimes, though not always, it is accompanied by romantic love and sexual attraction. Always,\u00a0however, there is a sense that the other is a kindred spirit, one whose affinity with you is founded\u00a0upon valuing preciously the same things you do.\u00a0But such a love, as we know, is not easily found. Most of us spend our lives looking for it,\u00a0searching, restless, dissatisfied and morally lonely.\u00a0It\u2019s this kind of loneliness that brought Jesus to his knees in the Garden of Gethsemane. The blood\u00a0he sweated there is the blood of a lover, one betrayed, morally betrayed, hung out to dry in all\u00a0that was precious to him.\u00a0Nikos Kazantsakis once wrote that virtue is lonely because, at the end of the day, it is jealous of\u00a0vice. \u201cVirtue,\u201d he writes, \u201csits on its lonely perch and weeps for all it\u2019s missed out on.\u201d Not quite, though\u00a0perhaps that\u2019s what it feels like.\u00a0But the pain of virtue, while not immune to jealousy, is a whole lot deeper than Kazantsakis (and\u00a0conventional wisdom) suspect. It\u2019s the pain of Gethsemane, of moral loneliness, the ache of not\u00a0having anyone to sleep with morally.\u00a0One of the lessons of Gethsemane is that when we sweat our moral aloneness (without giving in\u00a0to compensation or bitterness) we undergo a moral alchemy that can produce a great nobility of\u00a0soul. \u201cWhat\u2019s madness,\u201d Theodore Roethke asks, \u201cbut nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?\u201d True.
\nAnd that madness intensifies loneliness, even as, more than anything else, it opens the soul to the\u00a0possibility of finally finding a kindred spirit.<\/p>\n

Gethsemane \u2013 \u00a0A Place to Learn a Lesson<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Second in a six-part Lenten Series)
\nThere\u2019s nothing wrong with wanting health, success, beauty, power, glamour, money, or fame. Of\u00a0themselves, these are good and can, if used properly, help God\u2019s glory shine through in ordinary\u00a0life. But they can also be dangerous and can just as easily corrupt, inflate, and weaken rather\u00a0than strengthen character. We want these things, but they aren\u2019t always good for us.\u00a0Ironically, the reverse is also true: We don\u2019t want failure, humiliation, sickness, powerlessness,\u00a0poverty, or inferiority of any kind. Yet these, more than success and glamour, are what produce\u00a0character and depth inside us. We see this, for instance, in a family who has a handicapped\u00a0member. It\u2019s this person who gives the family character and depth. The son or daughter who\u2019s the\u00a0professional athlete or the wonderfully beautiful fashion-model bring glory to the family, but not\u00a0necessarily character. Character comes from something else.
\nIf we examine ourselves with courage and honesty, we will see that almost all the things that have\u00a0made us deep and given us character are the very things we\u2019re often ashamed of: a plain body\u00a0that won\u2019t let us stand out in a crowd; a quirky family whose habits can only be understood from\u00a0the inside; a frustrating job where our real talents can never emerge because we don\u2019t have the\u00a0right education or the right opportunities; a troubled history within which there have been too\u00a0many instances where we were the dumb one, the weak one, the sick one, the excluded one, the\u00a0fat one, the slow one, the one chosen last when sides were drawn up, the one without a date on a\u00a0Friday night, and the one who got beaten up on the playground. Beyond that, we\u2019ve also been\u00a0forever the frustrated one, the one who, despite the burning ache for greatness, has never and\u00a0will never create the masterpiece, write the symphony, or dance on a world stage.\u00a0But character and depth aren\u2019t given for scoring goals in the World Cup, for winning Oscars in\u00a0Hollywood, or for being so successful or beautiful that you become an icon for an adoring public.\u00a0Character and depth are given for coping with powerlessness, inferiority, and humiliation, that is,\u00a0for finding that deeper place inside of you where you can make a happy peace with the fact that\u00a0your mother is too fat, that your father never blessed you, that you were abused, that the school\u00a0bully humiliated you in front of your friends, that you were always the outsider, and that even\u00a0today you live a life of quiet desperation wherein sickness, addictions, dark family history,\u00a0loneliness, and inadequacies of every kind are barely kept at bay.\u00a0There\u2019s an innate connection between attaining a certain level of depth and having experienced a\u00a0certain level of humiliation. That\u2019s one of the lessons of Gethsemane.\u00a0When Jesus walks into the garden of Gethsemane, he asks his disciples \u201cto watch\u201d. They\u2019re meant\u00a0to learn a lesson there, to see something illustrated. But, as Luke tells us, they missed the lesson\u00a0because they fell asleep \u201cout of sheer sorrow\u201d, were blinded by simple depression, and were\u00a0unable precisely to stare humiliation in the eye. That\u2019s why on the morning of the resurrection,\u00a0when Jesus meets two disciples walking away Jerusalem (the church, the faith, and the place of\u00a0towards Emmaus (a Roman Spa, a place of human consolation) he has to point out to\u00a0them the necessary connection between humiliation and depth: \u201cWasn\u2019t it necessary that the Christ\u00a0should have to suffer in this way so as to enter into his glory?\u201d\u00a0What they\u2019d missed seeing in the Garden, missed seeing Jesus struggling with and eventually\u00a0accepting, was precisely the innate link between the experience of humiliation and the\u00a0resurrection of character. Resurrections come after crucifixions, Easter Sundays after dark\u00a0Fridays, and depth of soul after the kind of pain that one is ashamed of.
\nHowever, just like power and success, failure and humiliation are also dangerous. Power can
\ncorrupt, but so can powerlessness. Many are the acts of violence that issue forth when people
\nfeel powerless and humiliated. Sometimes failure and frustration build character, but sometimes\u00a0they build monsters and murderers. Feelings of inferiority drive us into the deeper parts of our\u00a0souls, but demons, not just angels, lurk in those depths. That\u2019s why Gethsemane is drama without\u00a0a pre- written ending. Not everyone will handle things like Jesus did. The feeling of humiliation\u00a0can make or break us, pushing us either into greatness or perversity.\u00a0In Jesus\u2019 case, it pushed him into greatness. How he handled his humiliation was perhaps his\u00a0greatest gift to us and his deepest revelation of wisdom. By accepting humiliation and\u00a0powerlessness (without resentment, but as a gift that can used to give something deeper back to\u00a0the community) he taught us one of the deep secrets inside the very DNA of love itself, namely,\u00a0that only when the private ego is crucified do real love, community, and character emerge.<\/p>\n

Gethsemane \u00a0as \u00a0Liminal Space<\/strong><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/<\/a><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

(First in a six-part Lenten Series)
\nThere\u2019s never a good time to die, to bid final good-byes, to lose health, to have a heart attack, to be
\ndiagnosed with terminal cancer, to lose friends, to be betrayed, to be misunderstood, to lose
\neverything, to be humiliated, to have to face death and its indescribable loneliness. That\u2019s why
\nthere\u2019s a powerful resistance inside us towards these things.
\nWe can take consolation in knowing that this was the case too for Jesus. He didn\u2019t face these
\nthings either without fear, trembling, and the desire to escape. In the Garden of Gethsemane \u201che
\nsweated blood\u201d as he tried to make peace with his own loss of earthly life.
\nThe Garden of Gethsemane is, among other things, \u201climinal space\u201d. What is this? Anthropologists
\nuse that expression to refer to special times in our lives when our normal situation is so uprooted
\nso that it is possible precisely to plant new roots and take up life in a whole new way. That\u2019s
\nusually brought about by a major crisis, one that shakes us in the very roots of our being.
\nGethsemane was that for Jesus.
\nIt\u2019s significant that Jesus didn\u2019t go straight from the last supper room to his crucifixion. He first
\nspent some time readying himself. What\u2019s incredible in his story is that he had only one hour
\nwithin which to do this inner work.
\nImagine this scene: You\u2019re relatively young, healthy, and active. You\u2019ve just enjoyed a festive
\ndinner with close friends, complete with a couple of glasses of wine. You step out of the dining
\nroom late at night and you now have one hour to ready yourself to die, one hour to say your final
\ngood-byes, to let go, to make peace with death. Sweating blood might be a mild term to describe
\nyour inner turmoil. This would surely be an intense hour.
\nAnd so it was for Jesus. That\u2019s why his liminal time is often called his \u201cagony in the garden\u201d (an apt
\nterm to describe real \u201climinal space\u201d.) What\u2019s interesting too is what scripture highlights in his
\nsuffering in Gethsemane. As we know, it never emphasizes his physical sufferings (which must
\nhave been pretty horrific). Instead it emphasizes his emotional crucifixion, the fact that he is
\nbetrayed, misunderstood, alone, morally lonely, the greatest lover in the world, with God alone as
\nhis soul mate.
\nAnd what\u2019s burning up his heart and soul in Gethsemane? Jesus, himself, expresses it in these
\nwords: \u201cIf it is possible, let this cup pass from me!\u201d His resistance was to the necessity of it. Why
\ndeath and humiliation? Couldn\u2019t there be some other way? Couldn\u2019t new life somehow occur
\nwithout, first, dying?
\nIn the Garden, Jesus comes to realize and accept that there isn\u2019t any other way, that there\u2019s a
\nnecessary connection between a certain kind of suffering, a certain letting go, a certain
\nhumiliation, and the very possibility of coming to new life.
\nWhy that necessity? What do we ultimately sweat blood over? Perhaps Job put it best: \u201cNaked I3\/8\/2014 Gethsemane As Liminal Space | Ron Rolheiser
\nhttp:\/\/ronrolheiser.com\/gethsemane-as-liminal-space\/?print=1 2\/2
\nWhy that necessity? What do we ultimately sweat blood over? Perhaps Job put it best: \u201cNaked I
\ncame into this world and naked I leave it again.\u201d We are born alone, without possessing anything:
\nclothing, a language, the capacity to take care of ourselves, achievements, trophies, degrees,
\nsecurity, a family, a spouse, a friend, a reputation, a job, a house, a soul mate. When we exit the
\nplanet, we will be like that again, alone and naked. But it\u2019s precisely that nakedness, helplessness,
\nand vulnerability that makes for liminal space, space within which God can give us something
\nnew, beyond what we already have.
\nThere are times when we sense this, sense its necessity, and sense too that one day, perhaps
\nsoon, we will, like Jesus in the Garden, have to make peace with the fact that we are soon to exit
\nthis life, alone, but for our hope in God. That\u2019s Gethsemane, the place and the experience.
\nOur own prayer there, I suspect, will be less about necessity than about timing: \u201cLord, let this cup
\nbe delayed! Not yet! I know it\u2019s inevitable, but just give me more time, more years, more experience, more
\nlife first!\u201d
\nTo feel that way is understandable and, if we\u2019re young, even a sign of health. Nobody should want
\nto die or want to give up the good things of this life. But Gethsemane awaits us all. Most of us,
\nhowever, will not enter this garden of liminal space voluntarily, as did Jesus (\u201cNobody takes my
\nlife, I give it up freely!\u201d). Most of us will enter it by conscription, but just as really, on that day
\nwhen a doctor tells us we have terminal cancer or we suffer a heart attack or something else
\nirretrievably and forever alters our lives.
\nWhen that does happen, and it will happen one way or the other to all of us, it\u2019s helpful to know
\nthat we\u2019re in liminal space, inside a new womb, undergoing a new gestation, waiting for new birth
\n\u2013 and that it\u2019s okay to sweat a little blood, ask God some questions, and feel resistance in every
\ncell of our being.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jesus Before Pilate http:\/\/www.ronrolheiser.com.\/ Few things sit as deep within us as does the desire for freedom. We are not always sure exactly\u00a0what freedom means, but we are ever resistant to whatever restrains, limits, or coerces us. We do\u00a0not like … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fr-ron-rolheiser-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6363,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6362\/revisions\/6363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}