Fr. Frank Majka, SJ – The Bridge

Days of Sadness

This past week was a tough one at the high school where I work. On Tuesday a 2010 grad, Andrew Bolt, was murdered at Purdue by a fellow student. The next morning a sophomore at our school who had been suffering from cancer for the last year and a half died from his illness. Students, faculty, and staff were affected deeply by both deaths and there were many tears, hugs, and time spent in the school chapel.

I feel very lucky to be at a place where we could find strength not only in each other but also where we all could come together in prayer at Mass, as we did on Thursday morning. We didn’t use the liturgy to hide from what had happened or to provide explanations that would have been artificial and forced. Instead, we found comfort being together, and God was invited into into our grieving, thus opening a door to some consolation even if understanding was far away.

This coming week will be the two funerals in Drew’s and Greg’s respective home parishes. I’d like to respectfully ask you to pray for the two young men who lost their lives and for their parents, brothers, sisters, other family members and friends. Thank you.

Resolutions

The half-lives of my New Year’s resolutions are generally around five days, so last week I had to face the fact that once again I had failed to do what I’d intended to do (like some daily exercise) and done things I had resolved not to (like eating desert).

I suppose it’s common to fail in one’s New Year’s resolutions. But our failed resolutions can alert us to something more substantial, something St. Paul noticed and wrote about in his letter to the Romans, chapter7. Paul’s experience was that, despite his deepest resolves and best intentions, he did what had been forbidden by the Law and failed to do what had been commanded.

He realized that his resolutions didn’t translate into action and his willpower wasn’t strong enough, despite years of effort at being a strict Pharisee in his observance of the Law. He realized that perfect observance of the Law was impossible, no matter how intense one’s resolve and that, in fact, it was impossible for observance of the Law to make a person right with God.

What kept him from despair was his belief that through the love and sacrifice of Jesus, we are saved despite our moral failures, weaknesses and sins, not as the result of our resolutions and willpower but because of God’s unmerited love and forgiveness.

So our failures in carrying out our resolutions, whether of the New Year’s variety or any other kind, shouldn’t cause us undue concern. For in what is most important — our ultimate salvation — it is God’s faithfulness to his resolve to be merciful to us that is more important than any resolutions of ours.

Expectations

In talking to the crowds one day about John the Baptist, Jesus asked them what they had expected to see when they went out to John at the Jordan. In the last week or so I’ve been thinking about how important the question of expectations is. It applies, after all, to many things — What do I expect to see? What do I expect to hear? What do I think will happen?

Just like in our lives generally, in our relationship with God we have expectations, too, some of which are met and some of which are not, or at least not in the ways we expected. Sometimes we get what we want, sometimes more than we want and sometimes less.

As we move closer to Christmas, take time to ask yourself what you expect from Christmas this year. Maybe you’ll have a Christmas beyond your wildest dreams or, perhaps, one that stretches you in ways you’d rather not be stretched. Both can be occasions of grace if we let God deal with us as he wishes.

Remember what the Rolling Stones sang: “You can’t always get what you want . . . but you just might find, sometimes, you get what you need.” (It may not be Scripture, but it’s pretty accurate.)

Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year!!

A Starbucks Advent Thought

This past week I was at Starbucks when it occurred to me that every one of us in that coffee shop shared something in common, for if St. Augustine was right, we all have a longing for God. Whether it is explicit or implicit, articulated or unarticulated, conscious or unconscious, we have a desire for a relationship with God.

There is a paradox in that longing, however, because we Christians believe that God has already come to us and taken up permanent residence in our world and in our history. Jesus, who is truly divine and truly human, has decisively closed the gap between us and God. So, what is that longing for God all about? Hasn’t Christ already provided the answer to that longing?

Yes, but our longing for God remains, not because God isn’t with us but because our relationship with God can always grow deeper and richer. In human relationships, love can grow or can diminish over time, and the same is true for our relationship with God. God is in our lives and our hearts, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t also desire for him to be even closer.

It is this longing, shared by all of us (including all the people at Starbucks that afternoon), which opens us to receive anew the God who is always present. It is this longing which the church celebrates in Advent.

Christ the King

In the Catholic tradition the last Sunday of the liturgical year celebrates Jesus as “the King of the Universe.” The feast took form in the 1920’s as the world was reeling from the carnage caused by World War One.

When that devastating war began, Europe was full of kings and queens. When it ended only one or two remained. Attributing to Jesus the title “King of the Universe” was a way of saying that, unlike other reigns, Christ’s would always endure, and it echoes the New Testament’s teaching that in Christ “all things hold together” and that his is “the name that surpasses every other name.”

The truly amazing thing about the reign of Christ, though, is not that it extends through time and space, but that it has touched so many individual human hearts. I am glad to know that Christ is the king of the universe; but I think it’s more amazing that his reign also can extend to every human heart.

And when it comes to the human heart, Christ does not force his kingship upon us. He invites and entices; he does not impose or coerce. He acts, as Julian of Norwich said, as our “most courteous Lord.” And if we ask him to rule our hearts, then he will hold the various parts of our lives together and will make our hearts like his. Ultimately, this is what God wishes for us — that every human being live under the gentle yet powerful reign of Christ, the King of the Universe and the King of Hearts.