As we’re pondering on the gospel lesson this morning, it’s quite easy to fall into the following interpretation, and I guess you’ve heard of something along those lines in the past: “Showing the miracle of filling the boats with fish, Jesus calls professional fishers to become fishers of people. They will no longer catch fish but people if they follow him. We too are called to catch people, to transform ourselves to become the fishers of people like Simon, James, and John. The gospel is bait to catch people, and we are God-sent fishers.”
This interpretation can be attractive in that it packages itself as a radical career change opportunity that may guarantee them honor and respect from people. But it is way too simplistic and can lead one to proselytization. There’s a difference between evangelization and proselytization. Evangelization is how we embody and live out the teachings of Jesus for all regardless of their backgrounds without any self-serving intention whereas proselytization finds its sole goal to convert people into the Christian faith. The former builds up a community of mutual respect and love while the former creates a social club of who is in and out. Rather than pushing ourselves to be fishers of people, let’s flip the side and ask ourselves a fundamental question: Are we the ones caught by Jesus? Are we the fish in the net of Jesus? (I’m not talking about fish to be sold and eaten but to be the Eucharistic food that feeds others in need.) This new way of reading the lesson isn’t far-reaching since Simon, James, and John too are captured in the net of Jesus as they witness the miracle of catching countless fish. If we’re caught in the net of grace, how do we know that? What if we don’t even know whether we’re caught in the net or not? I believe we all have this experience of being held by something or someone when we feel like falling into the bottomless pit of despair. I remember the moment when I was going through treatments. At that time, I couldn't help myself stand up or walk, experiencing a total loss of control over my body. I remember the moment that I felt hopeless when I was not needed by anyone for anything. What about those moments of yours you felt a sense of hopelessness as if there’s no way out but a dark tunnel in which you look for light or something to hold onto? In this experience, we feel isolation, loneliness, or abandonment. But this is not the end. In isolation, we can see more clearly that one hand that reaches out to us. Only in darkness, does light reveal itself. However we describe this experience of being held or caught in the net of grace, there’s a common theme of hope. This is the hope that can spread to others in despair. I’m reminded of the Scottish blessing I love, which begins, “May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within. May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that strangers and friends may come and warm themselves at it…” While we remember the light without and light within from our experience of being caught in the net, I would like us to reflect deeper. I would like us to revisit the experience of hopelessness right before being held. It’s that moment of falling endlessly. This is when we truly see who we are. All the images and masks, the sense of who we are, who we create ourselves to become, are completely stripped away. That physically strong, smart, self-reliant image I’ve projected onto myself no longer exists when health, security of employment, social networks are gone. What’s left is what we truly are. This can be daunting but truthful. What’s left after all is not a better sense of who we are, but the net of grace itself. This is the nature of the resurrection of Christ. Through the death of who we used to be and who we desire to become, we’re resurrected, not with a better version of self, but with Christ. From this place of Christ, we can better craft who we can be. We have a clearer sense of who we used to be and can be and use it for the better. If I know what I’m privileged with, be it gender, race, class, education, etc., how can I use it to empower those without it? This is more of a practical side. You might wonder how we can continue to deepen this sense of being caught in the net. You can imagine what answer I would give to you. Yes, it is through contemplation that we put into our daily practice. You sit quietly with yourself, face yourself, alone, before and within God. Fall into that deep dazzling darkness and get hooked in the net of love. Do it until you enjoy that graceful ride. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar would say, “Fall upward!” Though it sounds very much like a cliché, Eric Carmen was right to say “Love is all that matters” as well as the Beatles who sang, “All you need is love.” This simple truth about love matters to us Christians whose faith aims to follow the life of Jesus and live out his teaching. Love is the word that can sum up the reason for Jesus' existence. That love never ends points to the mystery of the resurrection. Jesus’ greatest commandment is to love God and neighbors as oneself. It seems there are three players in this act of love, who are God, neighbors, and oneself, but all three become one in loving and being loved as the three are in one in our understanding of God in the trinitarian manner of love, beloved, and loving. Our love of God can only be demonstrated in our love of neighbors who show our capacity of love for ourselves.
In the previous paragraph, the word “love” is used twelve times. My way of using the word shows my presumption that we all somehow know what it actually means. But do we? What do we really mean when we say we love someone? To save the great commandment of Jesus from letting it become a meaningless slogan, we need to keep in mind what love means to us and what we ought to do to love. If we are serious about Jesus’ Great Commandment of love, we can’t assume we know what love is. We need to have a better strategy to learn and train ourselves to love. St. Paul’s description of the nature of love in the lesson this morning can be considered as a good strategy. St. Paul unpacks what love does. While this famous passage on love is mostly heard in a wedding service, which is appropriate for a couple who commits their lives together to love each other, it’s meant to govern all our relationships with others. This morning, I would like to suggest reading it differently by replacing “love” with “I.” So, we read as follows: Am I patient? Am I kind? Am I envious or boastful or arrogant or rude? Do I insist on my own way? Am I irritable or resentful? Do I rejoice in wrongdoing or in the truth? Do I embody the virtues of patience, faith, hope, and persistence? Let’s be more skillful in asking these questions. We begin with ourselves to see if we love ourselves. I’ll liberally reorder these questions as some of them are similar to one another. The last two questions from above are not included since I see them more as a motivating factor to deepen our practice of love in a contemplative way. So, here we begin: Am I patient with myself? Am I kind to myself? Or am I rude to myself? Am I envious or boastful or arrogant? Do I insist on my own way? → Am I insecure of myself? Am I irritable with or resentful to myself? → Am I attacking myself? Asking these questions can be our spiritual practice which we can try out daily for self-examination. These questions are not a set of rules but to pause, reflect, and commit ourselves to love for the sake of love. Patience or kindness that doesn’t include oneself is incomplete because it is its hardest form! We then focus these questions onto others: Am I patient with others? Am I kind or rude to others? Am I envious or boastful or arrogant? Do I insist on my own way? → Am I truly humble with others? Am I irritable with or resentful to others? → Is there room for empathy and compassion? These questions help us navigate how we treat others. Our love for others is expressed in our acts of patience, kindness, humility, empathy, and compassion. Do we want to know if we love someone or not? Examine it with those questions. How patient, kind, humble, and empathetic am I with that person? If we have these questions in mind, it’s not too difficult to see where we are on the path to love. We’re left with the last two questions we’ve created from St. Paul’s remarks on the nature of love: Do I rejoice in wrongdoing or in the truth? Do I embody the virtues of patience, faith, hope, and persistence? I think these questions are meant to inspire us to have a stronger desire for love and help us center whenever we become less patient or kind with ourselves and others. To rejoice in the truth (aletheia; ἀληθείᾳ whose literal meaning is “unforgetfulness”) is to find the true joy in the process of awakening. Joy can only be found within our hearts in which we experience our union with God. Where we rejoice is where we begin again and again our journey to love. So, we can always ask ourselves, “Do I rejoice in the truth? Do I find joy in the union with God through contemplation?” This question then leads us to another question to re-examine our hearts to see if we are getting more skillful at loving ourselves and others: do I desire to embody the virtues of patience, faith, hope, and persistence? Who would’ve thought we need spiritual tactics to love better and deeper? Well, it looks like St. Paul knew it coming and Jesus simply showed us in his salvific action on the cross. Now is the time to practice! Let’s contemplate on the body. This method of contemplation is often called a body scan. The purpose of this practice is to be aware of each part of our body and each sensation that it brings to our attention and to see how many parts are interconnected and make a sense of self.
Starting from our toes, we can feel the texture that surrounds our toes and feet as we wiggle them. Go up to our ankles so that we can feel the socks and to our knees. If we somehow have difficulty sensing the parts, we can gently place our hands on them. Move our attention to our thighs and remain there to see how they feel. Then, stay around hips and back. Feel the belly and see its movement as we’re breathing in. As we’re breathing out, feel the back. We can move to fingers, hands, wrists, elbows, and shoulders, and neck. We might have some tensions around them. Slowly and kindly move around the neck and shoulders to let go of tensions. Let’s get to our face: lips, mouth, its warmth, tongue, throat; nostrils where our breath travels in and out; ears that hear things around us; eyes, eyebrows where we can feel muscles around; foreheads. Then the back of our head and to the top of our head. Now, let’s reflect on the thought that all these body parts make up who I am. If there’s a pain in your right foot, it will affect your left foot because it will do the work of your right foot. It will also impact your legs and then your back. This is what St. Paul in the lesson describes one member’s suffering impacting the whole body. Or imagine you’re getting a massage on your shoulders. You’ll be able to relax as tensions ease. Your neck will in turn feel better. Fewer tensions throughout your body. You might feel drowsy and start yawning. What these two examples of pain and relaxation respectively tell us is interconnectedness or interdependence. All body parts are interconnected and dependent on one another. This interconnectedness/interdependence crafts a sense of me. In other words, we cannot make sense of “me” apart from each body part. Let’s expand this idea of interconnectedness beyond our bodies. Our body is a boundary between the world and the sense of me. But if we pay attention to the sensation that the body provides, which is the experience itself, that boundary disappears. Focus on what you hear, see, and smell or whatever surrounds your body. That experience in and of itself helps us go beyond the sense of me or the world and connects us with something larger. For us Christians, that which is greater than us is Christ while that experience embodies us into Christ, thus the body of Christ. However, this very experience of the five senses and the mental faculty of feeling, perceiving, and intending/willing, though how each one of us experiences varies, is not limited to Christians but is something universal for every human being. This bare experience invites us to the deeper level of interconnectedness that this is the only state where we become selfless. Only the experience remains, not any sense of me-and-mine or them-and-theirs. When we perceive the world as self, paradoxically there’s no distinction between me and the other. Then, we can see the reality of how you and I are interconnected, not through what we are (because that would ignore our uniqueness as human beings) but through how we act. We’re interconnected through actions. Just as our five sense faculties of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing perceive what’s around us and thus link us to the world by creating a sense of the world and me, we can only perceive one another through our actions. If there’s no action of reaching out to you by saying hi, we have no connection to each other. All our actions accumulate to the present time and are interconnected. This doesn’t mean we are somewhat destined to do something out of control. In the present moment, we can always make a change. We can choose to do something different for the better. This is what we’re called to do and why we need the help of the Spirit. So, both the Prophet Isaiah and Jesus confess, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.” (Luke 4:16-19) Dwelling in the bare experience of naked awareness before a sense of self is born is to embody ourselves into Christ. With this contemplative alertness, we see ourselves as members of the body of Christ. Then we examine our actions from that place, how our unskillful actions are affecting other members of the body of Christ. This becomes our compassionate and genuine motivation and desire to change the way we act towards others, seeking the love of God in all we choose to do. Do we want to change the way we act, think, and speak? Can we do that? Yes, we can but it is only possible when we start from the place of contemplation where the Spirit transforms us. One of the significant messages at the baptism of Jesus is the moment of the Holy Spirit descending upon him and the voice coming from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22) In the lesson this morning, we hear the story of the Samaritans accepting the word of God dwelling in themselves through the message of Jesus and getting baptized in his name. This means that these people have decided to follow Jesus and live the way of the cross. Also, it indicates the message of Jesus is not only limited to Jewish people but also to the Samaritans who are half-Jewish and half-gentile, therefore available to all non-Jewish people.
The lesson this morning tells us that something about their baptism is still incomplete. Something is missing in their baptism; they have not received the Holy Spirit. This is somewhat odd if we’ve assumed that the Holy Spirit, automatically by default, descends upon all the baptized at their baptism. But then let’s think of our own baptism. Do you remember the Holy Spirit descending upon you at your baptism? You were probably too young to remember anything if not being taken a picture by your family while crying out loud in terror. Then, has anyone in your church life ever mentioned to you the receiving of the Holy Spirit? We might be those who are missing out on something at our baptism. This doesn’t mean that the sacrament of baptism is incomplete. It is complete, which is why once is enough. What’s not complete is that something has not been activated, meaning we may have not yet personally experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. The sacrament of baptism signifies, acknowledges, and reveals that every human being is planted with the divine seed. In other words, everyone is created in the image of God. This sign, acknowledgment, and revelation of the divine seed in us is one thing that the church ritualizes but our own awareness of the Holy Spirit presently living in our lives is another. This latter is the concern of the apostles in the lesson. The apostles, Peter and John, are sent to pray for the newly baptized that they might receive the Holy Spirit by laying their hands on them. This is a form of special transmission in the Christian tradition, which is outside the scriptures. This transmission is to point to one’s heart so that the newly baptized can see the divine presence dwelling in their human nature. They see in themselves Christ that is the union of two natures, human and divine. Our own awareness of the presence of the Holy Spirit or spiritual awakening is not through intellectual exercises but through our direct engagement with the Holy Spirit herself. This is done through transmission between the church, the people of God (not in an institutional sense), and the baptized. The laying on of hands is to point out the image of God in the baptized. It’s an action that attempts to activate what’s already planted in the baptized. Imagine the moment when Peter and John lay their hands on the heads of the baptized. Deep spiritual intimacy takes place where the warmth of Peter and John’s hands may be experienced and felt like the hands of God, embodying the mystery of the incarnation in their prayers. This spiritual practice of laying on of hands may be considered as an instant method to help the newly baptized to have a sense of God’s presence in them. While this practice shouldn’t be done without mature spiritual discernment and depth, I encourage all of us to try to bless our loved ones with the hope that they too feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. This doesn’t have to be overtly religious in its expression. Gently say the words of care, love, and best intentions, wills, and wishes as you caress their heads or foreheads. No blessing is better than the blessing that comes from the ones we love, trust, respect, and share our lives together. Another way to intentionally receive the Holy Spirit is via contemplation. This may not be a quick method but serves two purposes. One is that it can certainly help us be in the presence of the Spirit. The other is that it keeps us more attentive, alert, and aware of God’s presence in our daily lives. There’s nothing magical about contemplation as the Spirit is not a magical kind either. But it connects us to the reality itself that we are dependent beings, that we are created, that we are impermanent as everything else, yet the very present moment that we’re focusing on and aware of in union with God is eternal now when we hear, “You are my child, the Beloved; with you, I am well pleased.” As the world we live in becomes much more uncertain and unpredictable, which has always been its intrinsic nature, we might feel more anxious and unsettled. Science, technology, and medicine can help us survive but it doesn’t create a peace that lasts. For us Christians, that peace comes from the resurrection of Christ in which we die and rise again in the very presence of God. We don’t need to die physically to experience this peace or to see how we’re going to be resurrected. This peace can be experienced here and now as long as you are here and now. Don’t look further. Don’t travel in search of a diamond that is already sewn in your clothes. Start here and now. Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker movement, eloquently captures the meaning of God coming and dwelling in our midst in the life of Jesus as she says, “I’m so glad that Jesus was born in a stable. Because my soul is so much like a stable. It is poor and in unsatisfactory condition because of guilt, falsehoods, inadequacies, and sin. Yet I believe that if Jesus can be born in a stable, maybe he can also be born in me.”
I find this saying of Dorothy Day hopeful and encouraging, especially as we start a new year. A stable where Jesus is born no longer functions as a stable for animals but a home or shelter for Jesus. What makes this particular stable so special is its unusual and strange guest, not its typical resident animals. This image best describes the reality of adoption that St. Paul talks about in the lesson this morning. We are God’s children because we who are the stables have this Christ in our midst. What makes us so special is again our unusual and strange guest, not our typical ego. We become God’s children because of and through Christ in us. Christ being born and dwelling in us reshapes how we make sense of self or ego just as the stable in which Jesus is born is transformed to a sanctuary and its resident animals to God’s companions who provide warmth and protection to the baby Jesus. Baptism is our public ritual to signify this transformative reality of Christ in us. This sacrament is the church’s bidding for all of us that Christ is awakened and enlightened in us. The way to experience Christ being born and dwelling in us is through contemplation. In deep silence, we become much more attuned to the presence of God that has been with us before the foundation of the world. Only in this union, we’re holy and blameless before God in love as St. Paul describes in the lesson. We see ourselves, others, and the world from this contemplative reality with the eyes of our hearts enlightened. Now, let’s be honest with ourselves. Do we have a genuine desire for this kind of contemplative life? Is there any convincing reason for us to believe that this life is better than how we live now? Why bother to go on this journey if we’re already satisfied with our current lifestyle? But are we truly satisfied with ourselves, how we think and live as well as others, how they think and live? What about the world we live in and struggle to survive during this pandemic crisis? Is it satisfying? Dissatisfaction can be painful to accept but can be the greatest motivation to make a change. There must be something better. To do so and to go even beyond a matter of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, we don’t have to look elsewhere but within. We don’t have to start from scratch. Our Christian tradition already has a wealth of spiritual resources to help us live a fulfilling life. Baptism, as it is for us to gain the eyes of our hearts enlightened, is the key. The seed is already sown in our hearts, and baptism highlights that universal, catholic reality of every human being that Christ is in us. In our encounter with Christ, we can experience a sense of completion, peace, and fullness of God’s presence in us. We don’t need anyone to get to Christ within our very being but fellow travelers who can walk together with us and join God’s work of love and compassion. The way is only through and from within, which is another expression of the contemplative life. Talking about it, like I do now, doesn’t do anything to you but its sole purpose is to motivate all of us to embark on this life together as contemplative companions. St. John of the Cross says, “In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wounds.” Don’t we wonder what it’s like to experience the Spirit secretly anointing us and healing our deepest wounds? Aren’t we curious about what we would be like after this experience? I invite all of us to include in your new year’s resolution deepening your spiritual practice of contemplation. As we see unexpected and unprecedented changes in our world, more so with the pandemic crisis, cultivating a life of contemplation has become crucial to living better and fuller. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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