Friar’s Corner: God’s love empowers us to love others
Leviticus19:1-2,17-18; Psalm 103:1-2,8,10,12-13; 1 Corinthians 3:16-23; Matthew 5:38-48
We are now finishing Sundays of ordinary time pick them up after Pentecost. Next Sunday will be the first one of Lent and focus on growing in our prayer, faith and action.
The readings this Sunday are difficult. Some think St. Matthew’s two points of “an eye for an eye etc.” and love your neighbor and hate your enemies,” is a social norm. This is not the normal way Christians are to put their faith into action as St. James 2:14 told us to act.
Leviticus is the third book in the Old Testament and over three thousand years old. It touches a theme we hear in early Israel dealing with living a better life than that of the pagan world. There is one sentence we hear often in the Bible, “Be holy, for I, the Lord, your God am holy.” That is a nice statement yet for us almost impossible with our fallen human nature and tendencies to various levels of sin within ourselves and all around us in the world.
Leviticus 19:18 ends here with a phrase we have heard : “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.” If I have not grown up in a rather good family I probably will not love myself. That makes it almost impossible to love others without a major conversion to Jesus. The latter summarized all laws by saying: “We should love God with our whole mind, heart and strength and love our neighbor as we love ourselves.”
The nine-step ladder
It is helpful to see that St. Matthew, in chapters five to seven, develops a process of spiritual growth starting with the Beatitudes beginning in 5:3-12. This is a nine-step ladder to grow in holiness and get to heaven. We see here the three major stages of growth from the Purgative stage of turning away from serious sin in our five senses. It is called the Dark Night of the Senses.
The second level, called the Illuminative stage, is being enlightened, which is most of our life of growth. It is called the Dark Night of the Spirit. God weans us away from a lot of earthly attachments so we can freely go with Him to heaven without regrets.
The last stage is a growing Unity and intimacy with God, our Father, Son (Jesus) and their Holy Spirit. Most people never get to that level because they do not know there is anything beyond their very limited vocal prayer and perhaps Sunday Mass. Very quickly I shall go through these with each sentence beginning with “Blessed are.”
The Purgative way
The Purgative way, Blessed are:
1) The poor in Spirit means renouncing our sinful flesh and many possessions. Happiness in not there.
2) Are those who mourn where we renounce the world and its power.
3) Are the meek where we renounce the devils and their works, our pride and prestige. God is the only permanent solution for our human condition.
The Illuminative way
The Illuminative way, Blessed are:
4) Those who thirst or hunger for goodness. This is a perfection of our gift of Faith.
5) Those who are merciful or loving. This is a perfection of our gift of Hope.
6) Those who are pure of heart. This is the perfection of our gift of love or charity. It involves an integration of our human faculties and our inner child of God as we find true joy in becoming pure of heart.
The Unitive way
The Unitive way, the highest stage, Blessed are:
7) The peacemakers. Those who make things work for good.
8) Those who are persecuted for being known as holy. These do the right things because this is God’s will.
9) Those who are persecuted because they are disciples (students) of Jesus. These are those who proclaim and die for Christ. They love others so much because God loves them so much.
Primer to Prayer
All of this may sound difficult. Many don’t grow much in the second stage because they don’t know how to grow in their spiritual life. Very few grow to the Union with God stage because they don’t know how to get there. A good and very simple book about growth in these stages is Primer to Prayer by Fr. Bartholomew J. O’Brien, published by Tan Books, @ about $4.50, ISBN: 0-9625975-8-9. This would be good Lenten reading.
May the Holy Spirit enlighten our minds to understand all this and pierce our hearts to desire this growth in God’s holiness. Let us pray for one another to achieve more of the joy advancing in these spiritual levels climbing this ladder of love to heavenly glory. We can want to help God make this world a better place to live in. Amen! Remember, Wednesday is the beginning of Lent. Blessings,
+ Father Bob Hilz
fbhilz@gmail.com
(© 2020 Father Bob Hilz, TOR)
