Editor's note: This is the fourth in an eight-part series, "Keys to the Spiritual Life in Times of Transition," prepared by the Archdiocesan Spirituality Commission.
I wonder if your Catholic beginnings were similar to mine.
I was baptized at two weeks of age in the parish church of St. James in Redondo Beach by a family friend, Msgr. John Hughes. This family gathering was the beginning of my own experience of the Christian faith.
On this day I was inserted into the beautiful heritage of our faith, a faith that had been received, lived and handed down by generations of family members through times of prosperity and poverty, times of stability and of confusion, through times of peace and times of turmoil. Over the years I have entered more and more deeply into the mystery of this wondrous gift and I continue to be awed by the depth, the breadth and the power of God's love for me, for us - for all of us.
This vertical dimension of the faith is very tangible and important, but it is not the only dimension. As I grew older, I became aware of the necessity, too, of the horizontal dimension - that sharing the faith with persons outside my familiar circle of family and friends was vital if I was to move beyond a "club membership" mentality.
This double vision of the faith experience is what creates the Cross in our lives. At some point, the vertical must meet with the horizontal in order that we might fully embrace and live that Cross and call ourselves "Christ-ian."
At the juxtaposition of our inheritance of the great tradition of faith, the comfortable and intimate "home" into which we are introduced, and that Gospel commission to share one's faith with others, we discover the mystery of Christ. The Church is not a club for membership; rather it is a community for transformation. The more we receive, the more we need to share. The gift keeps on giving - we do not run out of opportunities.
The life of each one of us is a story, and it lives within the Great Story. The personal Story is the gateway to this universal Story. It is the starting point, not the terminus.
Likewise, the universal message is received and understood in one's personal Story. At the core of this story is grace - God's abiding presence down through the ages, and across every race, culture, and human grouping. From Scotland to Patagonia, from Greenland to New Zealand, from China to Africa, grace is discovered in the most ordinary encounters and places of people's lives.
The macrocosm is discovered or confirmed in the microcosm and vice versa. Whether we look through a telescope or a microscope, we uncover the same mystery of connection and interrelatedness. The Kingdom of God is among us! This is what Jesus preached and lived and what disturbed the religious establishment of his day, because those religious leaders had no control over this aspect of people's lives. God's actions have never been limited to the temple or the liturgical rites. God is to be found everywhere for those who have the eyes to see - even, perhaps especially, in times of transition and change.
Within the Jewish tradition, there is a story that illustrates this: An unbeliever asked Rabbi Joshua ben Qarehan, "Why, of all things, did God choose the humble thornbush as the place from which to speak with Moses?" The rabbi replied: "God chose the humble thornbush to teach you that there is no place bereft of the Divine Presence, not even a thornbush."
Indeed it is true, that God is present to us especially in challenging times and in not so obvious ways.
How did Jesus deal with change and transition in his life? In the Scriptures, we see clearly that Jesus was faithful to the core of his Story, his relationship to the Father, whom he grew to know as Abba. This Abba experience sustained him and guided him in good times and bad, through doubts and temptations, in the great confusion of the times in which he lived. He remained faithful to who he was because he knew, and tenaciously held to the faithfulness of his Father. This is the model for us in our struggles with change and transition - to remain faithful to who we are, who we are called to be, in relationship to God.
And what is that relationship? The words Jesus heard, at the Jordan, and on the mountain, and everywhere in-between: "You are my beloved son." No matter how Jesus was treated, no matter how misunderstood or misread, no matter how much his teachings were challenged, he continued to love and be faithful to the Father whose voice he continually sought.
By our baptism we too share in this relationship, the Story of a faithful love that has been handed down for 2000 years, a love which calls us "beloved son/beloved daughter" and which invites us to join our small story to its great and wonderful message - that love can and will prevail in spite of difficult changes. We are agents of that goodness, that graciousness, that love, for others. Father Jim Clarke is director of spiritual formation at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, and chairperson of the Archdiocesan Spirituality Commission. |