This morning

It was an honor to have Deacon Phyllis Manoogian join us this morning for All Saints Sunday Mass at St. Stephen's.

All Saints Sunday

November 6, 2016

Ephesians 1.11-23

+ This past Tuesday was a very important day in the Church. Capital C. The wider, universal Church. It was one of the really important feast days. November 1 was All Saints Day. It is the day in which we commemorate all the saints who now dwell with Christ in heaven. It is a beautiful feast.

And we, here at St. Stephen’s, celebrated the day appropriately. We celebrated All Saints Day by celebrating a new saint—our own dear Betty De La Garza. We celebrated her life with a Requiem Mass that morning. And it was beautiful and sad and bittersweet all at once.

We Episcopalians do these things well. We do funerals well, we do commemorating our deceased loved ones well. We celebrate the saints—those who are both well-known saints and those saints who might only be known to a few—very well as Episcopalians.  

And when anyone from St. Stephen’s dies, or when anyone close to someone at St. Stephen’s dies, you will always receive an email with a request for prayer. And the request for prayer will usually begin with these words:

“The prayers of St. Stephen’s are requested for the repose of the soul of …so-and-so.”

Occasionally, someone will ask me about that prayer request. Someone will ask,

Why do we pray for the dead? We do we pray for the repose of their souls? After all, they’ve lived their lives in this world and wherever they’re going, they’re there long before a prayer request goes out.

The fact is, we DO pray for our dead.

We always have—as Anglicans and as Episcopalians. You will hear us as Episcopalians make their petition for prayer when someone dies that you won’t hear in the Lutheran Church, or the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church. Praying in such a way for people who have passed has always been a part of our Anglican tradition, and will continue to be a part of our tradition. And I can tell you, I  like that idea of praying for those who have died.

But, I want to stress, that although we and Roman Catholics both pray for our dead,  we don’t pray for people have died for the same reasons Roman Catholics do. In other words, we don’t pray to free them from purgatory, as though our prayers could somehow change God’s mind. Rather, we pray for our deceased loved ones in the same way we pray for our living loved ones. We pray for them to connect, through God, with them. We pray to remember them and to wish them peace. 

Still, that might not be good enough answer for some (and that’s all right). So…let’s hear what the Book of Common Prayer says about it. And, yes, the Book of Common Prayer does address this very issue directly. I am going to have you pick up your Prayer Books and look in the back, to the Catechism. There, on page 862 you get the very important question:

Why do we pray for the dead?

The answer (and it’s very good answer):

“We pray for them, because we still hold them in our love, and because we trust that in God's presence those who have chosen to serve [God] will grow in [God’s] love, until they see [God] as [God] is.”

That is a great answer! We pray that those who have chosen God will grow in God’s love. So, essentially, just because we die, it does not seem to mean that we stop growing in God’s love and presence. I think that is wonderful and beautiful. And certainly worthy of our prayers.

But even more so than this definition, I think that, because we are uncertain of exactly what happens to us when we die, there is nothing wrong with praying for those who have crossed into that mystery we call “the nearer Presence of God.” After all, they are still our family and friends. They are still part of who we are.

Now, I know that this idea of praying for those who have died  makes some of us very uncomfortable. And I understand why. I understand that it flies in the face of some of our more Protestant upbringings. This is exactly what the other Reformers rebelled against and freed us from.

But, even they never did away with this wonderful All Saints Feast we are celebrating this morning. This morning we are commemorating and remembering those people in our lives who have helped us, in various way, to know God.

As you probably have guessed from the week-long commemoration we have made here at St. Stephen’s regarding the Feast of All Saints, I really do love this feast. With the death of many of my own loved ones in these last few years, this Feast has taken on particular significance for me. What this feast shows me is what you have heard me preach in many funeral sermons again and again. I truly, without a doubt, believe that what separates those of us who are alive here on earth, from those who are now in the “nearer presence of God” is truly a very thin one.

And to commemorate them and to remember them is a good thing for all us. Now, I do understand, as I said before, that all this talk of saints makes some of us more “Protestant minded” a bit uncomfortable.  But…I do want us to think long and hard about the saints we have known in our lives. And we have all known saints in our lives.

We have known those people who have shown us, by their example, by their goodness, that God works through us. And I want us to at least realize that God still works through us even after we have departed from this mortal coil. Ministry in one form or the other, can continue, even following our deaths. Hopefully, we can still, even after our deaths, do good and work toward furthering the Kingdom of God by the example we have left behind.

For me, the saints—those people who have gone before us—aren’t gone.  They haven’t just disappeared. They haven’t just floated away and dissipated like clouds out of our midst. No, rather they are here with us, still. They join with us, just as the angels do, when we celebrate the Eucharist. For, especially in the Eucharist, we find that “veil” lifted for a moment.

In this Eucharist that we celebrate together at this altar, we find the divisions that separate us are gone. We see how thin that veil truly is.  We see that death truly does not have ultimate power over us.

I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have heard stories from one priest or layperson or the other who have said they have experienced, especially during the Eucharist, the presence, in a sometimes nearly empty church, of the multitude of saints, gathered together to worship. And there have been moments during our own liturgies here, even fairly recently, when I have felt the presence of our departed members. Every time we worship, we worship with those who are worshipping in the Presence of Christ. And so, when we worship here, it does feel sometimes like people we loved and worshipped with are here with us still.

It is like Harriet Blow, and Betty Spur and Betty De La Garza and so many others are still with us, still here, in that one holy, thin moment when the veil between here and there is parted for a moment.  And I am very grateful for that holy moment. I am grateful to know they are still with us in some holy and beautiful way.

That is the way Holy Communion should be. It’s not just us, gathered here at the altar. It’s the Communion of all the saints.

In fact, before we sing that glorious hymn, “Holy, Holy Holy” during the Eucharistic rite, you hear me say, “with angels and saints and all the company of heaven we sing this hymn of praise.” That isn’t just sweet, poetic language. It’s what we believe and hope in.

In these last few years, after losing so many people in my family and among close friends, I think I have felt their presence most keenly, at times, here at this altar when we are gathered together for the Eucharist then at any other time. I have felt them here with us. And in those moments when I have, I know in ways I never have before, how thin that veil is between us and “them.”

You can see why I love this feast. It not only gives us consolation in this moment, separated as we are from our loved ones, but it also gives us hope. We know, in moments like this, where we are headed.  We know what awaits us.

No, we don’t know it in detail. We’re not saying there are streets paved in gold or puffy white clouds with chubby little baby angels floating around. We don’t have a clear vision of that place. But we do sense it. We do feel it. We know it’s there, just beyond our vision, just out of reach and out of focus. And “they” are all there, waiting for us. They—all the angels, all the saints, all our departed loved ones.

So, this morning—and always—we should rejoice in this fellowship we have with them. We should rejoice as the saints we are and we should rejoice with the saints that have gone before us.  

In our collect this morning, we prayed that “we may come to those ineffably joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you.” Those ineffably joys await us.  They are there, just on the other side of that thin veil. And if we are only patient, we too, as Paul tells us in his letter to the Ephesians this morning, will obtain that inheritance that they have gained. We too will live with them in that place of unimaginable joy and light. And that is a reason to rejoice this morning.

 

The Requiem for Betty De La Garza

The Requiem Mass for

Betty De La Garza

November 1, 2016

+ I will be honest with you this morning. I do not want to be here. I do not want to be saying goodbye to Betty today.  I—like many of us today—just aren’t ready.

Last Thursday, when I went to Grand Forks and we knew it was time for her to go, I will say in all honesty say: it was very hard. Even as I anointed her, even as I prayed the Prayers at the Time of Death with her and Ciro and the boys and Amanda, I kept thinking, I don’t want her to go. I wasn’t ready.

After all, I saw her a week before and, although she wasn’t well, there was still talk of her getting out and getting better. That day, we shared holy Communion, we cried over her mother, we laughed a bit and joked. She asked me if I had eaten lunch.  

And I believed right up to that day she left us that she would get better and get back home. And that only makes it harder.

For me, Betty was a parishioner, yes, but she was also a very dear friend, as she was to many people here today. I knew Betty for many years. We became very good friends in that time.  And I certainly enjoyed greatly those years I knew her.  We talked on a fairly regular basis. She always loved to tease me.

One of the things she loved teasing me about was that I am vegan. Betty could not, for the life of her, comprehend how anyone in the world could be vegan. It was bad enough that someone didn’t meat. But no dairy either? That just blew her mind.

In typical Betty fashion, she would then occasionally send me photos of food with lots of meat and dairy and then write: “you don’t know what you’re missing. Tee hee. Love you, Father Jamie.”

But we would also talk about the hard things in her life—and there were many. For someone who felt emotions as intensely as Betty, who loved as deeply as Betty loved, life could be hard. For reasons I do not understand, people were sometimes were not nice. And I know the loss of her sister was hard, but the loss of her mother, Georgia, was really hard on her.

I, of course, knew Georgia very well too, and in that time after Georgia died, Betty had a hard time. She would often call me and say, “Father Jamie, I miss my mother so much. I just want to go and be with her and Jesus.”

For all the hard times, for all the pain she sometimes felt emotionally, I can tell you, one thing that never changed was her deep and abiding love for Jesus.  Holy Communion was important to her because in Communion, she felt especially close to Jesus. Because she loved Communion so much, we are including Communion in our service today, in this Requiem Mass. This is definitely the way Betty would want it. She would want to share with all of you one of the ways in which she truly felt closest to Jesus.

When Betty would call and be sad and would cry and would tell how much she loved Jesus, I would tell her in return, “Well, you know, Betty, that Jesus loves you too.” And she would know that.  And being reminded of that helped her, I think.

That is our consolation today as well. As difficult as it is right now,  the reality is this. We are saying goodbye, yes. But it is only a temporary goodbye. It is a goodbye until we see each other again.

Betty, I can tell you, had a very deep faith and belief that we would, one day, all see each other again. Although we are sad today, although we might be feeling a sense of disbelief that Betty is no longer here with us, I can tell you this: today is a day of glory as well. Today is a day in which, even sad as we are, we can celebrate.

I think it’s very appropriate that we are celebrating Betty’s life with us on this day. Today—November 1^st—is All Saints Day.  That’s a very important day. It is the day in which we celebrate all those people who have passed from this life and now dwell with Christ in glory.

Now, I can tell you, if I even joked to Betty that she was a saint, she would do that thing she did. She would roll her eyes, and wave her hand at me and then, maybe, she would giggle at how funny that was. But then she would kind of agree with it, certainly in this way. You can almost hear her say this,

“You know, bad things happen to good people. Well, is that’s true, I must be some kind of saint.” Betty was that kind of saint.

Again and again, I heard from people about how she genuinely cared for people. I know that if you needed anything from Betty, she would do anything to do it for you.  She would go out of her way for people. She did those things not for any reward. She did those things because she really, really cared. For me, that’s a saint. And today, as we celebrate all the saints, we celebrate Betty too, the newest saint to dwell with Christ our Savior.

Last Thursday, Betty passed from the pain and suffering she was experiencing into a glory we can only imagine right now.  She believed in that glory. She knew it awaited her. And she knew she was headed toward that glorious destination.

In this moment, Betty is whole. She is happy. And she is beautiful.  And she is preparing a place for each of us.

I can tell you, death has not defeated Betty. All that love, all that concern she had for us, all of that sparkle, that humor—all of that is not gone. It is not lost.

Today all the good things that Betty De La Garza was to us—that woman of humor and joy and love, that woman who really and truly cared for us and wanted to very best for us—all of that is not lost. She is not gone. Death has not swallowed her up.

Rather Betty is alive and dwells now in a place of beauty and Light inaccessible. She is in that place where she said, again and again, she wanted to be. She is with Jesus. She is with her mother. She is with her sister.  She now dwells in a place of peace and joy, where sorrow and pain are no more, neither sighing, but life everlasting.  In a place in which there will be no more tears.  Betty will never cry another tear again.

Sadly, we’re not at that point yet in our own lives.  We will shed more tears.  Certainly today and in the days to come we will shed more tears.

But, for us who are left, we know that that place Betty hoped in and believe in awaits us as well.  That place of light and joy awaits each of us as well. And we will have the opportunity to dwell there.  And she will be there waiting for us.

Yes, I am brutally honest today. I will miss Betty very, very much.  I will all miss her teasing, her phone calls, her warm and bubbling presence. I will feel her loss for a long time to come.

But, on this day in which we bid her this temporary goodbye, let us also be thankful. Let us be thankful for this woman whom God has been gracious to let us know and to love. Let us be thankful for all the good things she was to us. Let us be thankful for all that she has taught us and continues to teach us. Let us be grateful for the love she felt for us and the love we felt for her. And let us be grateful for all she has given us in our own lives.

Into paradise may the angels lead you, Betty.

At your coming may the martyrs receive you, and bring you into the holy city Jerusalem. Amen.

24 Pentecost

Luke 19.1-10

+ When I was a little boy at the Lutheran Church at which I grew up, we used to sing a little song in Sunday School. I haven’t heard since then. I bet James knows the song.  But it went like this:

Zacchaeus was a wee little man,

A wee little man was he.

He climbed up in the sycamore tree,

The Savior for to see.

In fact, I even remember an illustration of Zacchaus for us little tykes.  It showed this little man in a tree looking at Jesus. It must’ve been the fact that he was “wee little man” that made him so appealing to kids.

At the time, I was certain that Zacchaeus was a munchkin of some sort.  Of course, the Bible and the Wizard of Oz were both equally meaningful to me at that time (and at time both still are).

But his wee stature makes our Gospel reading a seemingly pleasant story.  We’ve all heard this story of how Zacchaeus climbed the Sycamore tree to see Jesus.  And on the surface, it really is a pleasant story.  It seems to be a story of faith and persistence and how, with faith and persistence, Zacchaeus invited Jesus to his home, which Jesus did and ate with him. A very nice story.

But…(there’s always a “but”)  to truly understand this story we have to, as we always and always should, put it within the proper context of its time and its culture.  When we do that, we find layers to this story that we might not have seen at first glance.

The first clue that something more is going on in this story is the fact that Zacchaeus is identified a chief tax collector.  And that he is rich. The fact that he is rich is actually a bit redundant. The chief tax collector is, of course, going to be rich.

But it isn’t that he’s rich that we might find something deeper going on. The real big deal to this story is that he is a tax collector. That’s important.  

I don’t know if you remember our Gospel story from last week—the story of the Pharisee and the—who?—the tax collector? In that story, the tax collector went to heaven, the Pharisee went to hell. This week, we have another tax collector.

The reason Jesus uses tax collectors in this way is important.  It’s important because a tax collector at that time, in that culture, was one of the worst people one could imagine, if you were a good Jew, that is.

On one hand, he was seen as a traitor.  He had sided with the occupying government—the Roman government—and collected taxes from his own people to pay the Roman government.  These tax collectors were also notorious for lining their own pockets.  And this might be why there is mention of the fact that he is rich. He, no doubt, was rich because he stole money from the people.  It was easy for tax collectors to skim the coffers so they could keep what they wanted for themselves.  And even if they didn’t resort to such underhanded dealings, they were usually judged by the general population as doing so. Certainly, no one trusted and certainly no one liked tax collectors.

But this wasn’t the end of Zacchaeus’ troubles. Probably worst of all, Zacchaeus was seen as ritually unclean by his fellow Jews.  After all, he handled the money of the Romans, which had on it, an image of the Emperor.  Since the Emperor was viewed as divine, as a god, what Zacchaeus was handling then was essentially a pagan image and to handle it was to make one’s self unclean according to the Jewish Law.

So, Zacchaeus—poor Zacchaeus—was in a lose-lose situation.  He was despised as being both a traitor and as being religiously unclean.  And Jesus knew full well who Zacchaeus was and what he stood for in his world when he called up to Zacchaeus in that tree and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.”

Jesus knew full well that Zacchaeus was unclean—nationally and religiously. Zacchaeus was an outcast.  He was living in the fringes of his society.  He probably had few friends—and the few friends he had were no doubt friends with ulterior motives—friends who knew they could get something out of Zacchaeus.

When we re-examine our Gospel story again knowing what we know now, the story takes on a very different tone.  It becomes less of a sweet, Sunday School story about a short man and becomes quite a radical story.  It shows us that Jesus truly was able to step outside the boundaries of his day and reach out to those who truly needed him.

Now, for Zacchaeus, he does the right thing.  He says to Jesus that he will not only pay back half of his possessions, but he even offers to pay back four times the amount he stole.  This is really incredible because Jewish Law didn’t expect anything close to four times the amount being paid back.  In the 6th Chapter of Leviticus, whenever anyone commits a trespass against God by deceiving a neighbor in the a matter of a deposit or pledge or by robbery or if one has defrauded a neighbor, the one who defrauded shall pay back the principal and add one-fifth to it. (Leviticus 6.1-7)

But we know why Zacchaeus makes the offer he does.   For those of us who are truly repentant, that’s what it feels like sometimes, doesn’t it?  I often hear from people about how sorry they are for this and for that. But on those occasions, when I am truly sorry—truly repentant, truly striving to make right the wrongs I’ve done—I find myself wanting to go above and beyond the call of duty. I want to make right the wrongs I’ve done and feel as though it is truly right again. That is what Zacchaeus is truly saying to Jesus.  And that is what we should be truly saying to Jesus as well when we turn away from the wrongs we’ve done and attempt to do right again.

The story of Zacchaeus shows us that sometimes Jesus must violate some social norms and even the popular interpretation of scripture.  Just by going to Zacchaeus’ home, Jesus has made several major faux pas.  He has talked with an unclean person.  He has gone with this unclean person to the house of the unclean person—a household which according to Jewish Law is unclean as well.  That means the building, the wife, the children, anyone who enters it, is unclean.

So Jesus enters the unclean dwelling of an unclean person.  And what does he do there?  He probably goes there and he probably eats there.  Again, two more things the Law was clear were wrong.  Eating food prepared and served by unclean people was unclean as well. And eating that food makes the clean person unclean.

And yet, as we know, Jesus was not made unclean by any of this.  What in fact happens?  Jesus makes the unclean clean.  Jesus purifies this man, his family, his house, his food—his life. The purification of Jesus was bigger than anything anyone at that time could possibly understand.  And even for us—now.  His presence and his Word turns the uncleanliness of that place into a place of redemption and joy. And that is how this story for today really ends.

It’s never mentioned outside of the fact that Zacchaeus is “happy to welcome” Jesus, but there seems to be an almost palpable joy present in this story.  The word Joy is never even used.  But we know—we feel—that as this story ends, there is a true and wonderful joy now living in that house of Zacchaeus because of Jesus’ presence there.  The lost have been saved.  The unclean have been cleansed. The wrongs have been righted. See, this is what want for our story as well.

No matter what we’ve done, no matter how unclean we or the standards of our own day or society have made us, the presence of Christ in our lives, the sound of his Word in our ears, redeems us.  With Christ, we have been found.   With Christ, joy has replaced whatever dark emotions lived within us at one time.  

Those of who have climbed the sycamore tree searching for Jesus, who have gone here and there searching for him among the crowds, have not found his salvation in those places.  Where have we found Jesus? Right here. In our own homes—in our own place.  Jesus comes to us in a familiar place and we are better for it. Jesus comes and fills out familiar places with joy.  Jesus is still saying to each of us today, “hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”

Our house is this life that we have.  It is this house he enters and dwells within.  And by his presence he purifies. And fills with an almost palpable joy!

Today, at this altar, we will heed that call.  When we come forward for Eucharist—when we come forward to eat his flesh and drink his Blood, we are saying yes to his command that he must stay at our house today.  And when we leave here and go into the world, we do so knowing he has redeemed us and made us whole so that we can share that joy we feel with others. And that we no longer see the uncleanness of others.

So, let us listen to his words to us.

“Today salvation has come to this house.”

That salvation he promises is with us. Here. Now.  Let us rejoice in that salvation.   And let that implied joy we find in our Gospel story come bubbling up within us at this news so that when he comes to us we will be overjoyed to welcome him.

23 Pentecost

October 23, 2016

Luke 18.9-14

+ So, this past week there was a photo going around of our two presidential candidates at the Alfred E. Smith Foundation Dinner on Thursday night. It showed Hillary Clinton on one side and Donald Trump on the other, engaged in an obviously very heated conversation. And in between was the host of the dinner, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of New York,  Timothy Cardinal Dolan, looking very… overwhelmed.

The caption to the photo was

“the life of a priest, right here.”

And it’s true. Oftentimes, that is exactly what it feels like to be a priest.  Let me tell you! Yup, not always glamour and fancy clothes!

That photo reminds me of situations priests sometimes find themselves in. Some of you probably have been in similar situations in your own lives.

For example, sometimes people come to me as a priest and, because they have some issue with another parishioner, they want me to go to that other person and deal with the situation on their behalf. THEY don’t want to confront the person. But they seem to think it’s somehow the priest’s job to confront that person for them. And the priest finds her or himself very much in a position like Cardinal Dolan in that photo.  Stuck right in the middle.

To be clear, it is not the priest’s job to be THAT PERSON. One of the things I have been very proactive about in my ministry is avoiding that ugly situation of triangulation.  Triangulation, as you can guess, is one of the quickest “clergy killers” out there.  

Actually, I luckily, have not really had to deal with triangulation much here at St. Stephen’s. One of the great aspects of St. Stephen’s has been the self-reliance of the parishioners. But, in other congregations I’ve served, let me tell you, they do attempt to resort to triangulation quite often. And…I hear many fellow clergy share stories in which they have found themselves trapped in the middle of those situations.

In the past, when I have found myself being nudged into such a situation, I finally have had to ask a question.  I, of course, tell the person: you need to talk to this person if you have an issue with them.  You’re talking to them will probably be much more successful than my talking to them on your behalf.

But, if that doesn’t work—and it usually doesn’t work—I ask those people: “have you tried praying for them?” And I’m not saying, praying for them to change, for them to be more like what you expect them to be. Have you just prayed for them, as they are? Because when we do that, we find that maybe nothing in that other person changes—ultimately we can’t control how other people act or do things—but rather we are the ones who change. We are the ones who find ourselves changing our attitude about that person, or seeing that person from another perspective.

However it works, prayer like this can be disconcerting and frightening.  Let me tell you. I have done it.

I’ll be honest: I have had issues with people who do not meet my own personal expectations. But I do find that as I pray for them, as I struggle before God about them, sometimes nothing in that other person changes. (God also does not allow God’s self to be triangulated) But I often find myself changing my attitude about them, even when I don’t want to.

Prayer, often, is the key. But not controlling prayer.  Rather, prayer that allows us to surrender to God’s will.

That’s essentially what’s happening in today’s Gospel reading. The Pharisee is not praying for any change in himself. He arrogantly brags to God about how wonderful and great he is in comparison to others.   The tax collector however, prays that wonderful, pure prayer

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

It’s not eloquent. It’s not fancy. But it’s honest. And it cuts right to heart of it all.  

Now, you’ve often hear me mention the so-called Jesus Prayer, that ancient prayer of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

It’s a prayer I have held very, very dear for so long. And it is a prayer that had never let me down once. It, of course, is an echo of the prayer we hear today in our Gospel reading.

Another similar prayer is one we find in the more Catholic-leaning tradition of Anglicanism:

Jesu, mercy.

Prayers for mercy are probably one of the purest and most honest prayers we can make.  And what I love even more about this parable is the fact that the prayer of the Pharisee isn’t even necessarily a bad prayer in and of itself.  I mean, there’s an honesty in it as well.

The Pharisee is the religious one, after all.  He is the one who is doing right according to organized religion.   He is doing what Pharisees do; he is doing the “right” thing; he is filling his prayer with thanksgiving to God.   We should all thank God for all the good things God grants us. The problem arises in the fact that the prayer is so horribly self-righteous and self-indulgent that it manages to cancel out the rightness of the prayer.  The arrogance of the prayer essentially renders it null and void.  

The tax collector’s prayer however is so pure.  It is simple and straight-to-the-point. This is the kind of prayer Jesus again and again holds up as an ideal form of prayer.  But what gives it its punch is that is a prayer of absolute humility. And humility is the key here.  It gives the prayer just that extra touch.   There is no doubt in our minds as we hear this parable that God hears—and grants—this prayer, even though it is being prayed by someone considered to be the exact opposite of the Pharisee.

Whereas the Pharisee is the religious one, the righteous one, the tax collector, handling all that pagan unclean money of the conquerors, is unclean.  He is an outcast.  Humility really is the key. And it is one of the things, speaking only for myself here, that I am sometimes lacking in my own spiritual life.

But, humility is important.  It is essential to us as followers of Jesus.

St. Teresa of Avila, the great Carmelite saint, once said, “Humility, humility. In this way we let our Lord conquer, so that he hears our prayer.”

I think we’re all a bit guilty of lacking humility in our own lives, certainly in our spiritual lives and in being self-righteous when it comes to sin.  We all occasionally find ourselves wishing we could control and correct the shortcomings and failures of others.  

Certainly, in this political season, we watch with almost gleeful joy when politicians are mess up at debates, or we rage at them.

“Why can’t they say what I want to hear?” I often find myself saying.

Or when a person fails miserably, or is caught in a scandal,  find myself saying: “Thank God it’s them and not me.”

Which is terrible of me! And maybe that’s also an honest prayer to make.  Because what we also say in that prayer is that we, too, are capable of being just that  guilty.

We all have a shadow side.  And maybe that’s what we’re seeing in those people we want to correct.  There’s no way around the fact that we do have shadow sides.  But the fact is, the only sins we’re responsible for ultimately—the only people who can ultimately control—are our own sins—not the sins of others. We can’t pay the price of other’s sins—only Jesus can and has done that—nor should we delight in the failings or shortcomings of others.

I remember reading a saying once by an Eastern Orthodox saint, Barsanufios.  He said, “He who recognizes his own stench in his nose cannot recognize any other smell even if he stands on a pile of dead bodies.”

Yes, it’s a disgusting image, but it strikes home.  All we can do as Christians, sometimes, is humble ourselves. Again and again.  Sometimes all we can do is let God deal with a situation, or a person who drives us crazy.

Lord Jesus, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Jesu, mercy!

We must learn to overlook what others are doing sometimes.  Doing so, exhausts me.  And so I don’t know why I would want to deal with other’s issues if my own issues exhaust me.

There are too many self-righteous Christians in the world.   We know them.  They frustrate us.   And they irritate us.   We don’t need anymore.

What we need are more humble, contrite Christians.   We need to be Christians who don’t see anyone as inferior to us—as charity cases to whom we can share our wealth and privileges and whom we wish to control and make just like us.

Rather, to paraphrase the great St. Therese of Lisieux: we should sit down with sinners, not as their benefactors but as the “most wretched of them all.”

That is true humility.  In our own eyes, if we carry true humility within us, if we are our own stiffest and most objective judges, then we know that we are the most wretched of them all and that we are in no place to condemn others. In dealing with others, we have no other options than just simply to love those people—fully and completely, even when they drive us crazy.

 Sin or no sin, we must simply love them and hate our own sins.   That is what it means to be a true follower of Jesus.  It is essential if we are going to truly love those we are called by Jesus to love and it is essential to our sense of honesty before God.

So, let us steer clear of such self-righteousness. But, in being humble, let us also not beat ourselves up and be self-deprecating. Rather, let us work to overcome our own shortcomings and rise above them.  Let us look at others with pure eyes—with eyes of love.  Let us not see the shortcomings and failures of others, but let us see the light and love of God permeating through them, no matter who they are.  And with this perception, let us realize that all of us who have been humbled will be lifted up by God and exalted in ways so wonderful we cannot even begin to fathom them in this moment.

This is the wooden base in the St. Mary Garden behind St. Stephen's. These holes were burned into it by the still-burning braziers dumped from the thurible following Mass.