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In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute. Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more: https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/
In 2014, I am facilitating a 12-week interactive online course in contemplative prayer and action for priests with Saint Luke Institute. Please visit SLIconnect.org to learn more: https://www.sliconnect.org/product/living-god-program-contemplative-life-2/
5th Sunday of Lent, Cycle A
St. Francis of Assisi (Derwood, MD
(Upper Rockville)
April 5-6, 2014
Relationship Before Creed
By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato
A Personal Relationship
To Christians of the
world, Pope Francis has recently written: “I
invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal
encounter with Jesus Christ.
“I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. Being a
Christian is not an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with a
person.
And here comes a
promise from our holy father: “Thanks to
this encounter with God’s love, we are liberated from our narrowness and
self-absorption. We become fully human
when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves.”
In those riveting
words Pope Francis is calling us to a personal relationship with Jesus with
promises of liberation and transformation.
What could this
liberation and transformation mean for us? How might we achieve such a personal
relationship?
Both the Gospel story
of the raising of Lazarus and Pope Francis tell us that the liberation and
transformation will come from a relationship in which there is listening and
responding to Jesus on our part.
The Gospel, a Model for Liberation and Transformation
In our Gospel story
this evening/morning, Jesus is comforting Martha in the pain she is
experiencing over the untimely death of her brother, Lazarus.
In doing so, notice
that Jesus offers her a creedal statement, that is, a statement for her to
believe in, namely, that he is, “the
resurrection and the life.” The statement calls for her belief. In fact the
word “belief” appears 8 times in that passage we heard.
And then, Jesus
presses the point of Martha’s believing when he asks her, “Do you believe this?” Martha’s
response is crucial.
Notice Martha does
not reply, “Yes, I believe this fact
about you.” Instead, she says: “I
have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God.” So Martha does not profess her belief in
a teaching, not even Jesus’ teaching on resurrection!
Instead, she testifies
that she believes in Jesus, the person. Her
statement is about her personal encounter, her relationship with Jesus, and
this will be the core of her faith.
It is this believing
in Jesus himself that the passage is all about.
Steps in the Liberation and Transformation
Besides having us shift from creedal belief to
personal relationship, the Gospel spells out how the liberation and
transformation of Martha come about.
First, she makes time to sit in silence with
Jesus. We do that by carving out 10 or 15 minutes while the house is silent in
the early morning hours, before anyone is stirring. We do it perhaps over a cup
of steaming coffee or tea.
She then looks into his eyes and feels his
presence. We do that by reading a short passage of a Gospel and listen to Jesus
speaking to us and allowing the words to sink in, to take root.
Martha acknowledges her pain and sadness, “Lord, if you’d been here my brother would
not have died.” We do the same in speaking our own suffering, loss or
disappointments to Jesus.
Martha then surrenders herself to the person
of Jesus. She rests in that presence. She trusts in that presence. We do that
with a similar resting, savoring, floating in God’s presence to us
And out of the grace-filled moment, locked in
that life-giving gaze of the Lord, she proclaims a new way for herself to live:
“Yes, Lord I have come to believe that
you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”
Conclusion
Pope Francis has it
right when he says that through this encounter with Jesus Christ, “we
are liberated from our narrowness and self-absorption. We become fully human when we become more
than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves.”
The liberation for
Martha and for us is from death itself and from all the smaller deaths and
dying to self that we encounter each day.
The Gospel isn’t
only a story of two sisters who grieve the death of their brother; it is our
story and our struggles, sadness and grieving, and the liberation and
transformation that are ours in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
