Church Leaders

We need to keep Peter and the rest of the apostles in mind when we think about church leaders, especially today.

Look at Peter in today’s reading from the Acts of the Apostles. He’s in Joppa, at the house of Simon the Tanner. Joppa, remember, was the seaport where Jonah began his perilous journey into the gentile world. After Pentecost the apostle strongly proclaimed the resurrection of Jesus; he performed miracles and bravely withstood persecution by  the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. The church was doing very nicely.

Peter saw the gospel welcomed even in Samaria and Galilee. Visiting the coastal areas near Joppa, he heals Aeneas, a paralyzed man in bed for eight years and raises Tabitha from the dead. (Acts 9,31-43) Doesn’t that remind us of Jesus?

Then, the apostle tired and hungry goes to sleep on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house overlooking the vast sea, and he has a disturbing vision. Instead of the kosher food he’s eaten all his life a gentile banquet is poured out before him, and reacting as a typical loyal Jew Peter protests that he wont eat it. Three times the vision invites him to eat then vanishes before the puzzled apostle.

Messengers appear at the door from Cornelius, a gentile soldier stationed in Caesaria Maritima, the main Roman headquarters some miles up the coast, asking Peter to come and speak about “the things that had happened.” Here’s the gentile banquet that Peter is invited to attend.

“I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but every nation is acceptable to him,” Peter says as he instructs Cornelius and all his household and then baptizes them.

I wonder, though, if Peter truly understood all the consequences of his visit to Cornelius.Did the simple fisherman, who spoke Aramaic with a Galilean accent, who felt the pull of home and family and the nets of his fishing boat, ever become comfortable in a gentile world? Later, the apostle would travel to Antioch in Syria and then to Rome, where he was killed in the Neronian persecution in the 60’s. Did he move as confidently in the gentile world as he did in his own? Would he ever understand the gentile banquet?

The portraits of Peter in Rome usually portray him firmly in charge of the church with the keys of authority held tightly in hand. He’s clearly the one whom Jesus called the rock.

I prefer another portrait of him, however, that I saw years ago in the Cloisters Museum in New York. He’s softer, reflective, more experienced, not completely sure of himself. There’s a consciousness of failure in his face. He seems to be listening for the voice of the Shepherd. hoping to hear it.

Prayer is a Rock

Letter 3, St. Paul of the Cross

“When the sea is swept by storms, the wind raises the waters and they swell in huge billows. The waves hit the rocks and beat on them as if they would break them up and smash them to pieces. But not so! They beat on the rocks, yes, but the rocks don’t break nor are they smashed to pieces, although a small chip may be knocked off here and there. No matter how great the waves may be, the rocks are so hard that there’s no danger they will be shattered.

Similarly, the soul at prayer is a rock that God holds fast in his infinite love. It may even be called a rock of strength because the Sovereign Good imparts  strength to it.”

Faith Comes Alive in the Dark

St. Paul of the Cross, Letter 594

“By God’s high providence, you find yourself struggling in darkness. That’s where humility and self-knowledge are found. So don’t give up prayer,  interior solitude, acceptance of God’s Holy Will and all other virtues. Faith come alive in the dark. With love, then, detached from everything else, reach out to God in the silence and alone. Search for God carefully and peacefully.

But what am I saying? Isn’t God always with us? With naked faith, go to the depths of your soul and find your highest Good. Stay there and you’ll find all riches. We know that; remember it.”

Thinking About Yourself

Letter 160, St. Paul of the Cross

As you  look at what you’re going through, don’t philosophize and reflect  so much about yourself. Stop thinking about yourself and just do what’s right. Love God’s Will and stay beneath the Holy Cross without getting involved in useless subtleties. By thinking too much about yourself, you lose sight of the Sovereign Good.

With regard to prayer, if you can’t put in much time, it’s not important. You always pray by doing what is right.”

Work around the house, do what you have to do there, and be attentive to God by frequently plunging your spirit into the immense sea of divine love, but don’t check up minutely whether this plunge was done well. I repeat, go about doing good simply as children do…

Take care of your health, eat what’s necessary, and get the sleep you need. In that way you build up your strength, if that is God’s wish and for your good.

The Presence of God

I’m reading the Letters of St. Paul of the Cross and for the next few weeks I leave some excerpts:

“You may not be able to give much time to prayer and other spiritual practices now, but I will give you–with confidence Jesus Christ would agree–a rule about praying always. One prays always who does what is right. For this, I ask you to stay faithfully in the Presence of God in all that you do.

God will help you acquire this practice little by little. You may spend hours preoccupied and not remembering God’s Presence. That doesn’t matter, because your original intention empowers all you do.

But keep your heart and spirit aware of your beloved good God, yet do this gently, not straining your heart and  mind. Say, for example, “I don’t want to forget you, O God.” “My God, you are with me, in me, I live entirely in you and because of you.” God lives in you. You breathe in God, you walk with God, you work in God, who is joy, love, fire.

Get accustomed to making acts like that.. When God enters your heart as you are making those acts of love, stop, and like a bee take in the honey.

Letter 39

Belief Comes From His Wounds

Reading the letters of St. Paul of the Cross you notice how often he wishes the one to whom he’s writing to be placed in the “wounds of Christ” or the “holy Side of Jesus” or his “Sacred Heart.”.  “I am in a hurry and leave you in the holy Side of Jesus, where I ask rich blessings for you.”

Expressions like these seem to be pious phrases until we read the story of Thomas from John’s gospel. Jesus shows the doubting disciple the wounds in his hands and side, and Thomas believes.

Belief is not something we arrive at by our own powers of reason or will. Faith is a gift that God gives through Jesus Christ.

Humble Leadership

As 6th century Rome started to fall apart and he became pope, St. Gregory the Great wrote one of his great scriptural commentaries called the Moralia, or a Commentary on the Book of Job. Gregory ends his commentary with some humble words that reveal someone who is not afraid to know himself. He’s a humble man, and  we need humble leaders today. I simplify his words, not distorting them, I hope:

“Now that I have finished this work, I have to look at myself. We are so complex, even when we try speaking the truth. Let me go from the forum of words to the senate house of my heart, to take council about myself.

I don’t want to speak anything evil or speak poorly about what is good.

I wish my words please the One is good.  Yet, can I claim I have spoken no evil at all? Have I spoken less well than I should, perhaps? When I look within, pushing aside leafy words and branches of arguments, and examine my deepest intentions, I know I intend to please God, but has some desire for human praise crept in? Has it intruded into my simple desire to please God?

Later, much later, I may realize this. Often, our intentions to please God are joined by a secret yen for human praise. Self-righteously, we even use God’s gifts to please others.

So in my commentary I reveal God’s gifts, but let me confess my wounds too. Let me instruct the little ones by my words, but let others take pity on my weakness. I offer help to some and seek help from others. As I tell some what to do, I open my heart to others to admit what they should forgive.  I give medicine to some, but do not hide my wounds from others. My reader will have more than paid me back if, for what he hears from me, he offers his tears for me.”