Dig a Little Deeper

I was just preparing for tomorrow’s Mass, minding my own business, when a song got stuck in my head:  Dig a Little Deeper in the Well, by the Oak Ridge Boys.  I haven’t heard that song for years, and now it’s playing over, and over again in my mind.  I don’t expect the choir to be singing it at Mass tomorrow, but I’m afraid it’ll still be bouncing off the walls of my cabeza.  So if you go to the noon Mass tomorrow, beware – instead of Holy, Holy, Holy, you might hear me singing “Dig, Dig Dig . . . .”

 

So how did preparing for Mass make me think of the Oak Ridge Boys.  Well (so to speak), Sunday’s Gospel reading tells the story of the Woman at the Well.   You remember her, she’s the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well and learns a lesson about the difference between drinking water and drinking of the living water.  My mind is pretty simple, so when I read a story about a well, I think, “Dig a little deeper in the well, boys, you gotta dig a little deeper in the well.  If you want a good and cool drink of water you gotta dig a little deeper in the well.”  I really hope I just launched that tune in your head for the rest of the day!   

The basic point of the Gospel, or at least one of them, is that Jesus is the living water – if we drink of the living water, we’ll never thirst.  In other words, every human need, every human desire is ultimately fulfilled by God, not by earthly goods.  We can drink all of the well water we want, but if we don’t drink of the living water, we’ll never be truly satisfied.  

This isn't the easiest message to absorb.  How can spiritual fulfillment take precedence over physical fulfillment?  We’re constantly experiencing physical needs (hunger, thirst), and we know that if we don’t satisfy them, we’ll die.  Well, that is the point.  We’re all going to die someday.  Food and water (and Ghirardelli dark chocolate mint candy) may sustain us in this life, but they won’t do us any good in the next life (I could make an argument that Ghirardelli candy has eternal value, but that’s a subject for a future blog posting). 

The trick to placing our spiritual needs ahead of our physical needs is remembering that life is so much more than just this life.  God promised an eternal life of perfect love for all who have faith in him.  Drinking of the living water, immersing ourselves in God and dedicating our lives to loving God by loving our neighbor, both sustains us in this life and carries us happily into the next.  Living each day with the song of eternal life playing over and over again in our hearts and minds offers a deeper, richer, more fulfilling life than one spent worrying about when we’re going to die.  Eternal life is the gift of the living water.  Finding the living water requires faith.  And if you’re having trouble finding it, you gotta dig a little deeper.

If this post wasn't enough to get the song stuck in your head, follow this link to hear “Dig a Little Deeper in the Well,” by the Oak Ridge Boys.

Pray Without Ceasing

                Earlier this week, I was asked to speak with a little girl who had been offering her daily prayers for a young woman who was suffering from cancer.  It seemed that the young woman was not doing well, and the girl’s parents were concerned that she would lose faith in the power of prayer if the young woman died.  Explaining the benefits of prayer in seemingly hopeless situations is tough enough, but explaining it to a child is even more difficult.  Kids go right to the toughest questions:  “Didn't you say that God is all powerful?”  “Doesn't God love us?”  “Why does God let bad things happen to good people?”  I do my best to answer the questions, (“yes, “absolutely,” and “I don’t know),” but my conversations about prayer always seem to end the same way:  “Keep praying.  Pray without ceasing.”

                Prayer is the elevation of the mind and heart to God.  In prayer we place our deepest longings, our profound gratitude, our darkest fears and our greatest hopes before God, trusting that in his divine providence, “All will be well, and all will be well and every kind of thing shall be well.”[1]  But sometimes all isn't well, or at least it doesn't seem to be.  We don’t always get what we want in prayer, and sometimes we get exactly what we didn't want.  And yet, Saint Paul still tells us to “pray without ceasing.”  (1 Thess. 5:17)  The cynic in me wonders if this advice just increases the odds of getting what I want, but I know better.

                This challenge of prayer is one of perspective.  We may think we know what’s best for us or for others, but we may not.  We’re simply creatures living within our creator’s vast plan to make all well.  From our lowly vantage point, we can’t see the whole plan.  Think of it this way:  when you search for a destination on Google Maps, you get a pin-point location on a zoomed in map.  That’s our perspective.  If you want to know how to get there or what it’s near, you have to zoom out.  That’s God’s perspective.  God sees the whole picture – the whole plan – and knows the best way to get to the final destination.  God’s in the driver’s seat.  We have to sit back and trust that God loves us; that he always wants what's best for us. 

                If it’s all in God’s hands, why bother praying?  Well, prayer is an act of love.  Saint Paul might just as well have said, “Love without ceasing.”  Praying to God is loving God.  Praying for others is loving our neighbors.  Loving our neighbors is wanting what’s best for them, even when it may not be what we want or what we think is best for them.  Every time we pray for people, God receives our prayer as a selfless act of love.  Sometimes the specific words of our petitions may not fit perfectly into God’s plan, but God receives each prayer as a building block in his Kingdom of Love.  And the opportunity to live in the peace, and the happiness and the love of God’s Kingdom is the best outcome we could ever pray for.

                A little while ago, I learned that the young woman I mentioned at the beginning of this post has died.  I had been praying for her recovery.  On the surface, I didn't get what I prayed for.  Part of me wants to pack up my beads and leave the pray-ground.  But I know deep down that I really wanted something more for her:  I wanted whatever was best for her, from God’s perspective.  And because I truly believe that all is well, that that young woman now lives perfectly happy and healthy in the peace of God’s loving embrace, I know that my prayer was answered.  So I’ll keep on praying.  I’ll pray for that young woman’s family and friends; I’ll pray for my wife, my daughters, my family and friends; I’ll pray for my aunt and my friends who have cancer; I’ll pray for all who are hurting; I’ll pray for my friends’ new baby boy; I’ll pray for life; I’ll pray for peace.  I’ll pray without ceasing.

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[1] Julian of Norwich, The Showings.

No Deal! Deal? - Homily for the First Sunday of Lent, March 9, 2014

Temptation of Christ by Vasily Surikov

            Faust; The Devil and Daniel Webster; The Picture of Dorian Gray; Damn Yankees; and my favorite:  The Devil Went Down to Georgia – making a deal with the devil has been a popular theme in the arts for hundreds of years.  The story line is basically the same.  Some poor soul wants something beyond his reach.  Whether it’s the height of happiness; perpetual youth; a Major League Pennant; or a shiny fiddle made of gold, the protagonist becomes so desperate for the object of his desire that he willingly sells his soul to the devil to get it.  Sometimes the devil wins; sometimes he’s outsmarted – but there’s one common thread in every story:  someone succumbs to temptation and makes a deal with the devil.  Today’s Gospel tells a different story – Jesus stands up to temptation and tells Satan, “No deal!”  Through his example and the disciplines of Lent, we can too.

 

          It may be comforting to know that even Jesus faced temptation from the devil.  In today’s Gospel, Satan comes to him when he’s most vulnerable – when he’s hungry and weak from 40 days of fasting.   And in his vulnerability, Satan tries to convince Jesus to be something other than what he really is – the Beloved Son of God.  He tries to “seduce Jesus into thinking that what it means to be God’s Son is to be physically full, physically safe, and politically powerful.”[1]  As we heard in our first reading, that’s exactly what Satan did to Adam and Eve – he convinced them that by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree, by disobeying God, they could be like God.  Well, they couldn't, and we all know how that worked out for them.  They fell prey to temptation, they made a deal with the devil and were driven from Paradise forever.  Jesus, on the other hand, knows who he really is; he knows what it means to be the Beloved Son of God, and he accepts that it doesn't always mean that he’ll have an abundance of food, that he’ll be safe from physical harm, or that he’ll be politically powerful.  So he stands strong against the temptation to sin and refuses to deal with the devil.

          Sin is a strange thing.  In fact, it’s so strange that the Church refers to it as a mystery to “acknowledge its irrational character and its intoxicating allure, even when we rationally know better.  Sin draws us away from God and directs us to nothingness.”[2]  But we sin anyway.  Why is that?  Well, we’re afraid.  We’re afraid that we won’t have enough to survive, so we hoard our belongings.  We’re afraid that we’ll be hurt, so we lash out at others under the guise that a good offense is the best defense.  We’re afraid that the good things of life will never come to us, so we take advantage of others in order to get them.  The strangest thing about sin is that every time we succumb to temptation, we lose an opportunity to experience the only joy that will ever fulfill us – the self-giving love of God.  We miss the opportunity to love God by loving our neighbor, by sharing what we have; by treating people with compassion; and by respecting human dignity.  Through sin, we lose the opportunity to be who we really are:  Beloved Sons and Daughters of God.

          Just like Jesus, the devil approaches us when we’re most vulnerable – when we’re sick, when we’re lonely, when we’re afraid.  In our weakest moments, we can count on Satan to try his level best to tempt us.  And he’s good at it too.  “The devil doesn't come dressed in a red cape and pointy horns.  He comes as everything [we've] ever wished for”[3] that’s beyond our grasp.  The most dangerous temptations to sin appeal to our “fantasy selves,” to the person we think we want to be, not to the person we really are.  Our vulnerability lies in not understanding what it means to be a Beloved Son or Daughter of God, in not believing with every ounce of our conviction that God loves us and that, because of God’s love, all will be well in the end no matter what this world throws at us.  “When we do not know who we are, we enter into temptation.  When we do know who we are, we can reach for the resources to resist it.”[4]  So the secret to avoiding the temptation to sin lies in knowing that we really are Beloved Sons and Daughters of God, in believing in God’s promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ, and in trusting that God never welches on a deal. 

          So what resources are available to us to resist temptation?  Well, how about the disciplines of Lent – prayer, fasting and almsgiving?  Let’s start with prayer.  “The best way to say no is to be in touch with a stronger yes.”[5]  That yes, of course, is God, and the best way to be in touch with God is through prayer.  In prayer we speak directly and intimately with God, sharing our hopes and our fears, our joys and our sorrows with him.  Through prayer, we hear God’s voice calling us to love and helping us discern between right and wrong.  With prayer, we bear the mantle of the Beloved Sons and Daughters of God, a shield that can deflect Satan’s strongest temptations.  

          Fasting – I hate fasting, which, of course, suggests that I need it most of all.  Fasting helps us empty ourselves of what we think we need so that we can be who we really are:  Beloved Sons and Daughters of God who are “filled to the brim with divine life.”[6]  When we’re full of divine life – God’s self-giving love – we can’t hold it in, and that leads us right to almsgiving.  There’s no surer way to love God than to love our neighbor, and Satan knows it.  Some of the most egregious sins we can commit involve harming or taking advantage of another person.  But when we love one another, when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the imprisoned, we love God and really tick off Satan.

So I've got a deal for you.  Together, this Lent, let's tick off Satan.  Let’s commit ourselves to tackle at least one temptation that Satan keeps throwing at us by dedicating ourselves to prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  What’s in it for us?  Well, we’ll ground ourselves in our true identity as Sons and Daughters of God; we’ll be filled to the brim with God’s self-giving love; and we’ll strengthen ourselves in our resolve to sin no more, so we can say to Satan in no uncertain terms, “No Deal!”  What do you think?  Deal?

Today's readings:  Genesis 2: 7-9; 3:1-7; Romans 5: 12-19; Matthew 4: 1-11

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[1] John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers:  On Earth as It is in Heaven, Matthew, Year A (Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2004) at 105.

[2] John W. Martens, “Away with Sin,” America, vol. 210, no. 7 (March 3, 2014) at 38.

[3] Tucker Max, Assholes Finish First (New York, Gallery Books, 2011).

[4] Shea at 107.

[5] Id.

[6] Father Robert Barron, “Lent Day 4 – Mother Teresa’s secret to Joy,” Lent Reflections with Father Robert Barron, March 8, 2014.