Generations

Being a son. Being not my father. Being distinct, other, not him. And yet of him and out of him, and in that way being him, being my father by being his distinct son. One father. One son. And then this son becoming a father, with a son not him, a son being not him, being distinct.
As my father grows old, I trail him in that, refilling his forms, repeating his patterns, eventually featured as he once was, eventually so voiced, my breath the way his once was, his breath the way mine will be.
But not him. Not at all him. Distinct. Other. Different. And in this way being my father, living and passing on the life of my father.

Germs

We tend to scoff at the credulity of the ancients, who so readily believed in the presence of throngs of demons and angels invisibly surrounding them, anxious to harm or help, very much involved in their world. But how is it that we are so certain of the presence of incalculable numbers of dangerous invisible bacteria all around us and everywhere? Germs everywhere! Really? What faith!

God

Sometimes nowadays it is said that the name "Father" for God gives too strong a masculine image for our understanding of God, and so should be eliminated, or at least used alongside feminine names and images as well. Of course God is neither a he nor a she, and so no name and no number of rightly balanced feminine and masculine names can in themselves ever express who God is. But here I want to say why Christians use this name for God. Christians know God and address themselves to God in the way that Jesus taught. They do not invent their own way of addressing God and do not fashion for themselves a desirable version of a deity. AH this, they receive from Jesus. When Jesus teaches his followers the name "Father" for their most intimate form of address to God - in imitation of his own - it is just one more instance of the unfolding of the miracle of Christ's Incarnation, where the Eternal Word of God becomes flesh in a particular place and time.
This is a miracle in which finite, limited forms are made capable of bearing infinite divine realities. The finite, limited form - in this case the name "Father" - bends under the weight of the divine reality it carries and is re-defined beyond its limitations. If Father were a term of our own invention for God, then we could justifiably complain that it is hopelessly lopsided and limits God to masculine categories, that it runs the risk of simply evoking the deficiencies of particular, earthly, failed and bad fathers. But in the mouth of the eternal Word become flesh, "Father" is the finite, limited name he gave us which is a gate through which we pass into an infinite reality; namely, his own loving relation to the Source from which he himself is eternally begotten.

Good Friday

There is a literal level on which the crucifixion of Jesus took place and could have been viewed. This is reported in the gospels. But each and every detail of his dying opens infinitely into the mystery of God when that detail is proclaimed in an assembly of believers and received there in wondering minds and hearts.
Yesterday during the Good Friday liturgy, as the Passion was being sung, I felt myself entering more and more deeply into the scene, into the whole event. Toward the end, when I heard the words, "the soldier thrust a lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out" (John 19:34), the whole scene somehow flashed inside me, and I saw everything first in its literal sense. There wasn't much to this part: Jesus' body virtually already drained of its blood, the soldier's lance drawing a little more, the immobile corpse unduly, momentarily disturbed. But almost at once - and precisely because I had seen this literal level well - the gesture and the moment opened outward into its fuller meaning: blood and water for ever flowing into the sacraments that save us, into the sacraments that save me!
Perhaps it was in this same pattern of experiencing things that the evangelist himself originally wrote, and his experience is transmitted to me. This is as he says: "An eyewitness has testified and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you may also come to believe." (John 19:35) It is enough for him to say it. When I hear his testimony, a flash of belief and understanding moves through me. I adore the mystery and exclaim, "My Lord and My God!" (John 20:28)
Although I discover this pattern in one verse during an intense moment in the liturgy, it perhaps could be applied to understanding the whole of alI four of the gospels in whatever they speak about. This would freshen the approach to what we mean when we say that the gospels are inspired.

Good Thief

In the hour of Jesus' death on the cross, which does not pass away, I try to utter with my whole heart the words of the repentant thief: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And from that same hour he answers me: "Today you will be with me in paradise." This "today" of the hour of the cross stretches out across my whole life and so helps me to see how closely and how soon I am connected to eternity. In my cross and in my slow dying across a lifetime, I am in a particular time and place; and yet at that very time and from that very place on that same day, today, I will be in Paradise. Every day I must be a repentant thief, and every day is the very day on which I shall be with him in Paradise. The brief hour of my life is - all mercifully - the hour of Jesus' dying, which does not pass away.

Grace

It is not what I do that will be significant and lasting but what I allow to be done in me by grace, by God's life acting in me. What I do is limited and will fade or fail. What grace can do in me and through me is limitless, coextensive with what God is doing in the world. This is unexpected and more than might be hoped for were it not for the fact that just such surprises are revealed in Jesus as the will of God for us. "The one who acts in holiness is holy indeed, even as the Son is holy." (1 John 3:7)

Gratuitous

I feel myself without past and future, and so my present is disturbed. Of course, I do have a past and at least something of a future, but I cannot feel them anymore or find them. I am astonished that I should be here at all, and my astonishment increases because I see no purpose to it. But need there be purpose? Perhaps not. And yet, to be here without purpose - perhaps that is the meaning of "gratuitous." I am here by grace. All is gift.
But God is gone. I go forward with faith, thinking that I can't possibly be right in what I feel; namely, that God is far, far away and doesn't care. So I do alI the things that indicate that I think things are otherwise: I pray and I praise him. I thank him. Perhaps he is pleased. I hope so.

Great

The illusion that there is something important to do with one's life! Oh yes, I understand the point. Life is glorious, and we are marvelously made. But perhaps it is a question of the approach. When someone sets out to do great things, how much is accomplished really, and at what exorbitant prices? Maybe it is better to let go of the focus on great things as a goal, to live with hope placed in heaven, and then use well whatever time we find at our disposal. With the optic of that new amazement, something great may be done. But "great" will never mean a great me, a me that is marvelous and outlasts the short span of a lifetime. "Great" may mean something good done for others, something of value left behind. But 1 will vanish more and more. That is how it is, and with an act of faith and trust, 1 say also that this is how it should be.

Grooming

I know it's not the main point, but when Jesus said, "When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face and do not look gloomy" (Matt. 6:16-18), we can see from this that Jesus was aware of and sensitive to the niceties of grooming. He would know from his own experience what it means to "anoint your head and wash your face." I love to think of him anointing his head and combing his hair and looking into some kind of mirror or into the lake to see if it looked okay. These are all wonderful details of the Eternal Word's expression of himself in the flesh. When he says, "Do not look gloomy," it means he knew how to look pleasant ... or not. I like to imagine him examining his own smile, making sure that he looked approachable.
I want to keep alert in the gospels for details such as these. They are precious to me. They help me to know what I am so weak in fathoming: that the Eternal Word became flesh. How could this be, how could this ever be? How heavy was the Word's beard? How long was his hair? How exactly was his smile? How were his eyes? How tall was he? How much did he weigh?

Gypsy

A scene I witnessed earlier today in the city helps me to understand what we mean when we say that we will pray for somebody and why we do it. There was a pretty little gypsy girl, perhaps 12 or 13 years old. Suddenly a large man roughly flipped her on her butt and just as fast his hand was up her shirt where he pulled from her breast the roll of bills that she had pulled from him. The moment was necessary. It was harsh and cruel, and yet I think everyone who saw it was satisfied that this attempt at stealing had been foiled. The man was evidently carrying cash for the whole group of students he was leading around. But what I will remember now is this beauty: the color and tone of her young skin, her new breasts in a flash, her entire back (momentarily), and her streaming tears. I wanted to hold her. I wanted to say something. But I could not approach. There is no entry into a scene like that. There is no comforting a humiliated gypsy by someone outside her ring. Yet I know that I want to pray for her the rest of my life, and I want to be close to her in heaven. Will she be there? Will I?