Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

The Passion of Jesus

I’d always thought that “The Passion of Jesus,” with a capital P, referred to Jesus’ suffering and death. But what if we talked simply about the passion of Christ, with no capital P?

Then the passion of Christ would be more about the intensity (the passion) with which Jesus welcomed people, ate with them, reached out to them in their need and enjoyed their company. It would also be about the passion with which he did his Father’s will and showed people that the Father was also passionately committed to them.

As a matter of fact, in Jesus’ case the two meanings of the one word “passion” are not unrelated. One of the great New Testament scholars of the last century argued that because Jesus lived with passionate intensity and preached a loving, forgiving God, the religious leaders found him to be a threat to their power and authority and decided to kill him, handing him over to Pilate, who had him tortured and crucified.

So this Good Friday, try to realize that Jesus’ Passion came from his passion for his Father and for us. That makes the story of Jesus’ last days not just about physical suffering but about the greatest act in a life of passionate faithfulness and love.

Almsgiving

Almsgiving, the third traditional Lenten discipline, is about helping those in need. And if we expand the notion of almsgiving, it can go beyond monetary help to include giving others some of our time, attention and love as well.

At the heart of the practice of almsgiving lies the question of which people we include or exclude in our lives. We can draw the circle of our generosity so tight that our world consists of only family members. We can draw the circle wider to include our friends, neighbors or co-workers.

But what about those who inhabit circles farther away, people we don’t know and who the Bible calls “the alien and the stranger,” whose needs are real, maybe even desperately so, but who aren’t close to us? Almsgiving makes us think about such people and our responsibility to them, too.

Almsgiving is rooted in taking seriously the question that God put to Cain at the very beginning of the human race: Where is your brother [your sister]? When Cain says that isn’t his concern, God tells him that even though Cain has excluded Abel from his world, Abel is very much included in God’s. Almsgiving reminds us that, as the poet John Dunne wrote, “no man [or woman] is an island,” and the doors of our hearts should be kept unlocked and open to those who need help.

And what about the so-called “undeserving poor”? Do they have a claim on us? Almsgiving reminds us that we, who have not deserved God’s love or the many gifts he has given us, shouldn’t turn a cold shoulder to others who are in need. So, when we give alms, the recipients are encouraged by the fact that others are willing to reach out to them, while those of us who give help are reminded that those in need are, fundamentally, our brothers and sisters.

Forty and Counting

On March 23, 1974, in the San Francisco cathedral, I was ordained by the Jesuit bishop of Fairbanks, Alaska. This year is the fortieth anniversary of that event. Fifteen years ago I wrote a reflection about what I’d learned after a quarter century of being a priest. I still believe today what I wrote then.

What have these years of being a priest taught me? To put it in a nutshell, they have taught me that most people (myself included) are both more fragile and more resilient than I had suspected, and we all need to be treated with compassion. I have learned that though theology is important, kindness is far more important. I have come to believe that God is much less serious than I had thought and pays far less attention to failings than I do. I have learned that I am more connected to the whole human family than I know how to express or live up to. Most important of all, I’ve learned that even though I’m not holy enough or even good enough, I’m ok if I still remember that everything comes from God and all ministry is for the people. For now these lesson are more than enough for which to be grateful.

Lenten Fast

Our modern culture tries to get us to mistake wants for needs, and we can easily go from wanting something to believing we have to have it. (And, of course, advertising tries to convince us that their particular product is just the right thing to satisfy our wants-become-needs.) How might the traditional Lenten practice of fasting help us? I suggest it helps on two fronts.

First, it reminds us that wants and needs are, in fact, not the same. Forty-plus years ago an author named E. F. Schumacher wrote the book Small Is Beautiful, in which he proposed that our goal shouldn’t be to have all the things we want, but, rather, to learn what things are truly necessary and be content with those. I’ve found it helpful to ask myself if something I want is really something I need, and also to stay alert to see if my list of needs keeps getting progressively longer until the line between wants and needs becomes blurred. Fasting, at its root, involves going against our inclination to want more than we need or more than is good for us.

Second, fasting can help us realize that even when we know our needs, we must realize that some needs are more important than others. At the beginning of Lent we hear the story of Jesus’ encounter with the devil, who told Jesus to turn stones into life-sustaining bread. But Jesus answered that we don’t live by bread alone but “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Later in his ministry, Jesus also said that we should present our needs to God but “seek first the kingdom of God” and all other things will be given besides. No matter what else we need, then, our most important need is for God and his Kingdom.

So the fasting that we do in Lent can certainly be about giving up things like dessert or tobacco or fast food. But it’s truly about reminding us to value the things that genuinely matter and then to put first things first.

What the Future Holds

Last week the eyes of more than a few of us were turned towards a little town in Pennsylvania waiting for a groundhog named Phil to see or not see his shadow and thus let us know if Spring this year will be early or late. This ritual is just another manifestation of something very old, for seeking to know the future goes back a lot further than the lowly groundhog. For instance, reading the entrails of birds was common practice in ancient Rome, as was the throwing of yarrow sticks in China.

But is it always a good thing to know what’s coming, or does that take the adventure and mystery out of life? Perhaps there’s such a thing a thing as appropriately not knowing what’s coming.

Interestingly, Jesus seems to have known a bit about that. St. Paul wrote that Jesus put aside the “perks” of divinity during his earthly life (Philippians, chapter 2), and most of us think that being all-knowing is one of these. So even though Jesus said his Father knows the fall of every sparrow and has counted every hair on our heads, his own human knowledge grew (St. Luke, chapter 2), and even as an adult it kept growing — the Roman centurion’s faith was unexpected as was Nicodemus’ lack of understanding.

However we choose to parse this mystery in Jesus without falling into some ancient heresy, I have become more comfortable thinking that the greatness of divinity lies not in God’s knowing so much, but rather God’s loving and caring about us so much that he offers hope, comfort and grace in any situation, no matter how difficult or sad.

So, all we really have to know about the future is that God will be with us whatever that future is. And we don’t need the stars in the heavens or Punxsutawney Phil to tell us more.