Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

The Fruitful Seed

At the start of his ministry, Jesus told the story of a farmer who went out to scatter seed in his field. Depending on the soil the seed landed on, there would eventually be a crop. In this story, Jesus was clearly identifying himself with the farmer.

At the end of his ministry, just before the Passion, Jesus said that the seed which has been sown must go into the ground and die in order to be fruitful. Now he was no longer identifying himself with the farmer; now he was identifying himself with the seed. He was saying that he had come to realize that only by surrendering his own life to his Father in complete trust would his life really bear fruit.

Next week is Holy Week, and Jesus’ words are good to remember as we come to the end of Lent. We may have planted seeds by giving up something or doing some virtuous acts during these last few weeks. We might even decide to keep doing some of these things after Lent.

But Jesus’ insight reminds us that our best gift to God, as we reach the end of Lent, is ourselves. If we can die to ourselves and surrender to God, then we can rest assured that our lives and our efforts will be truly fruitful.

The Judgment

In Matthew’s gospel (chapter 25), Jesus says that at the end of the world there will be a judgment in which the good people (the sheep) will be told to enter Heaven while the bad people (the goats) will be condemned to Hell. The verdict will be made by the Judge, based on whether one has, or has not, shown compassion to “the least” of Christ’s brothers and sisters.

In his gospel, John (chapter 3) also says there will be a judgment. But it won’t be imposed by some outside Judge. Instead, the verdict will be our own, based on whether, throughout our lives, we have chosen to come into the light or stay in the darkness. We come into the light by loving our brothers or sisters, or we stay in the darkness by refusing to love them.

If we decide not to love others, we are actually rejecting eternal life because, in John’s view, whether we love or refuse to love in this life makes us who we are. And God won’t force us to be different, even in eternity. We choose our eternal destiny by choosing to love or not; it isn’t imposed on us from outside. We pass the sentence ourselves.

Temples

Jesus refused to tolerate the cheapening or exploitation of the temple in Jerusalem, which he called “my Father’s house.” He drove out the sellers of animals and the moneychangers because they didn’t pay it the respect and reverence it deserved.

At the same time, he declared that from then on he, Jesus, was the real temple. Just as the Jewish people came to the Jerusalem temple to meet God, he invited everyone to come to him and there find God living and working .

St. Paul added, in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth, that we, too, are temples. I think that clearly implies that people should be able to come to us (and we should be able to come to each other) and find God present.

God, who made the Jerusalem temple his home for a time and who’s made his permanent home in Jesus, makes us temples. That’s a great gift for which we should pray to be appropriately grateful, not just in Lent but all the time.

The Core Shines Out

Who we are is a great mystery, but we certainly know that we are much more complex than a computer. Furthermore, we sense that there is something in people that’s been described as the Indwelling Trinity, the Holy Spirit or a spark of the Divine. We sometimes intuit that it’s there, but, amazingly, the disciples Peter, James and John actually saw it — at the Transfiguration of Jesus.

In that experience, for a brief time, Jesus’ divinity, majesty and beauty transformed everything in him so that he shone like the sun. Seeing it, the disciples were overcome and wanted the experience to go on and on. But it passed; and in the dark days that followed, the body of Jesus would be marked by the wounds of his passion. And Peter, James, and John would have only the memory of what they had witnessed until they saw him again after the Resurrection.

Do we ever catch a glimpse of the Divinity that lies at the core of us or the people around us? It’s unlikely that it will show itself in the same dramatic way as at the Transfiguration, but we can see it if we know what to look for: deeds of love, courage, compassion, self-sacrifice, creativity and acts of simple kindness.

Rethink Possible

AT&T tells us in their ads, “Rethink Possible.” Jesus urges us, “Repent!” Interestingly, the Greek word for “repent” in the gospel (metanoia) contains the root word for mind, suggesting that Jesus challenged people to not just stop doing bad things but to change their minds and reorient their thinking.

So maybe Lent can be about thinking as well as behavior. Are there any specific things that could use rethinking? How about rethinking faith, going beyond rote observances and into the heart of trust which faith calls for? Maybe we could rethink others, looking at who we connect with, what we offer them, what they bring us and also who we don’t pay attention to. Or perhaps we might rethink our parish or church, to see how it could be a more effective community of prayer and service and how we might contribute to that effort.

We may be quite comfortable with all of these things; but if we want to rethink them, what better time to do it than Lent?