Soul Matters

When the risen Jesus appeared to his followers he showed them his wounds.  Indeed Thomas, one of the twelve apostles, needed to see the wounds of Jesus before he would believe that Jesus had risen from the dead (see John 20: 24-29).  It is significant that in his resurrected body the wounds that were inflicted on Jesus remained.

We are all wounded.  This is a fact. It is the human condition. We were born into a wounded world and into a wounded family. We could call this inherited sin which is another name for original sin.  We also pick up our own personal wounds, especially in childhood. What we do with our wounds is the thing that makes the difference.  If we allow our wounds to become sacred wounds then our lives can become sacred stories.

For our wounds to become sacred wounds we first of all need to accept that we are wounded.  This may not be easy.  We do not like to admit that we are weak and vulnerable.  We prefer to protect ourselves behind a coat of armour.  To accept our wounds is not to put ourselves down.  It is important that we do not hate ourselves because of our wounds.  It is also important that we do not blame others for our wounds.  Many people spend much of their lives blaming other people for the wounds they carry.  This is a cul-de-sac.  The people who wounded us were wounded too.

Once we accept our wounds we then need to acknowledge them in the company of others. This is about bringing them into the light. To share our wounds with people we can trust is liberating.  It also brings healing.  Remember the words of Jesus, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32).  

Finally, we need to surrender our wounds to God.  If we hand our wounds over to God we begin to experience God in a new and personal way. We discover the power of God working in us. We also discover that God loves us without conditions. This is something those who follow the twelve steps in the Alcoholic Anonymous Programme realise. In the third step they are invited to surrender their addiction to their higher power. Without this surrender they know they will fail. This too was the experience of the great St Paul who discovered that his wounds made him stronger (see 2Cor 12:7-10). God may not take away our wounds, but God will certainly help us to find a way of living with them.   God may leave our wounds to help us stay dependent on him and to remind us that he is the one who satisfies the deeper longings in our hearts.

We all need companionship in our lives.  Without some experience of companionship our lives can become lonely and sad.  When John Donne said that no man is an island unto himself he was giving expression to the need human beings have to be in relationship.  Of course companionship is much more than being social.  It is the experience of mutual presence.  It is a space where our capacity for life is nourished by others.  It creates the possibility of becoming intimate with someone. This is why the type of relationship we call companionship is one of the most beautiful gifts we can give to each other. 

There are different descriptions of what companionship actually is.  One model is what two people experienced as they travelled from Jerusalem to Emmaus after the death of Jesus.  On their journey they were joined by an apparent stranger who walked with them.  Their relationship with the stranger began with the experience of mutual acceptance and ended with a shared meal.  On the road there was attentive listening and soulful conversation.

This is a good example of what we might call Christian companionship.  Christian companionship has four aspects.  It begins with an attitude of acceptance that is inclusive and that transcends race, colour, religion, class and sexual orientation.  It offers people a listening hear and an opportunity to tell their story.  It allows soulful conversation to develop, the kind of conversation that gives expression to the things that truly matter.  And it includes the experience of a shared meal, which is sometimes referred to as table fellowship.  In fact, the word companion comes from two Latin words ‘cum’ and ‘panis’ which literally mean ‘with bread.’

When we experience companionship in this way we find that the longing within us is satisfied.  The experience of Christian companionship can be the key to unlock our hearts.  It can also open up the teaching of Jesus allowing us to find meaning and life in the Gospel.  It is no wonder that the two people who were accompanied by Jesus on their journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus found themselves saying, “did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32).

As Christians, we believe that Jesus rose from the dead on that first Easter Sunday.  He broke the chains of death and rose to a new way of living and loving beyond our wildest imagining.  The resurrection was an earth shattering event, the most important event in human history and it has many implications for us and for the way we live our lives.

One implication of the resurrection is the fact that Jesus is still with us.  The presence and power of the risen Jesus permeate our lives.  As a consequence of the resurrection, Jesus is no longer limited by time and space.  He is present to us and with us at every moment of every day.  He is the invisible companion of our life’s journey.  We do not have to wait for heaven to experience the friendship, the healing, the peace and the joy of the risen Jesus.  These things are already available to us.  The risen Jesus is working in our lives.  He is involved with us here and now.

A second implication of the resurrection has to do with the mission of Jesus.  The resurrection was a vindication of the way Jesus lived his life.  It was a confirmation of the values Jesus practised, preached and died for.  The way of Jesus works. When Jesus was nailed to the cross on Good Friday it seemed as if his mission was a failure, that he was a dreamer who offered the world an unrealistic vision of happiness.  His resurrection changed this; it transformed it.  Jesus was no dreamer.  His values of justice and compassion and service and humility and forgiveness are in fact the only values that work.  His values are the values that make the world a better place and that bring us personal fulfilment.  The resurrection of Jesus was proof that love is stronger than hate, goodness is greater than evil and life is more powerful than death. 

Of course another implication of the resurrection is that our death is not the end.  What happened to Jesus on Easter Sunday will happen to us.  We will share in the risen life of Jesus when we die.  Because of the resurrection of Jesus we have a life to look forward to beyond the grave.  Because of the resurrection of Jesus a new world will be opened up to us on the other side of death.  Because Jesus rose from the dead the place we call heaven is our destiny, our destination, our future home.  Indeed, in the words of St Paul, it is our true home.  For those who believe in Jesus and in the power of his resurrection the future is bright because the best is yet to come.  No wonder the late Karl Rahner once said, “It belongs to the Christian to hope.”

In Western culture meals now seem to be mainly about food.  In the culture of Jesus, the Jewish culture, meals were mostly about relationships; creating relationships and building relationships.  The table was a place where people spent time with each other, got to know each other, enjoyed each other’s company.  When the Jewish people gathered to break bread, to share food, they experienced acceptance and companionship.

In providing us at the Last Supper with a table to gather around and with sacred food to eat, Jesus was offering us an opportunity to experience his companionship.  The traditional word we use to describe the companionship of Jesus available to us in the sacred food of the Eucharist is communion, Holy Communion.  Holy communion is the experience of being in close intimate union with Jesus.

Of course in providing us at the Last Supper with a table to gather around and with sacred food to eat, Jesus was also offering us an opportunity to experience the companionship of one another.  Jesus did not want the meal of the Eucharist to be a personal encounter with him only.  He also wanted it to be an experience of community, an opportunity for his followers to meet one another, to spend time with one another, to share in each other’s lives.

The meal Jesus ate with his disciples the night before he died was no ordinary meal.  It was the Jewish Passover Meal.   The Passover Meal was sacred to the Jews.  It was their way of remembering and celebrating their liberation from terrible slavery and oppression in Egypt.  We too have been liberated.  We have been liberated by Jesus from the slavery and oppression of evil and death.  Each time we share in the meal of the Eucharist we experience the liberation which Jesus won for us.  Each time we share in the meal of the Eucharist we are being redeemed and sanctified by Jesus. 

No wonder the meal we call Eucharist has always been at the very centre of the life of the Christian community.

Following Jesus is a demanding business especially if we are to take it seriously.  It involves taking the road to Jerusalem, along with Jesus himself.  Jerusalem is the city where Jesus suffered, died and rose to new life.  It is a place of sacrifice and reward, of pain and joy, of failure and triumph, of agony and ecstasy.  It represents the Christian life.  But what does taking the road to Jerusalem actually mean in practice?

It means that we refuse to build our lives around material possessions.  Material possessions have their place but they must be kept in their place.  It is our relationship with God that is the true source of our satisfaction and security not what we own.  Our relationship with God cannot be destroyed. It is eternal.

It means that we stop living in the past.  Dwelling on old memories and hurts keeps us tied to the past and trapped in a prison of regret and anger.  It belongs to the Christian to hope. Jesus is leading us forward in hope to a better and brighter future.  In Jerusalem the tomb is empty.

It means that we stop making excuses for ourselves and for our lack of ability and talent.  Of course we are limited; yes we have weaknesses.  The Christian community is full of misfits!  The people Jesus chose to bring his good news to the world were a pretty motley bunch!  Jesus is not looking for perfection; neither does he expect us to be geniuses. All he seeks is our generosity and enthusiasm.  What Jesus wants is what we call heart. Heart is the kind of thing that on the sports field often makes the difference between failure and success.

Finally, it means that when it comes to making choices we put the cause of Jesus, the mission of Jesus, the work of Jesus, first.  In the way we choose to live our lives the values of Jesus, known as Kingdom values, must come before earthly values.

As we move closer to Holy Week we are invited to travel with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem.

In childhood we are wounded through no fault of our own.  It is the inevitable result of growing up.  Because of our wounds we develop a false self and fall into bondage.  We become separated, estranged from our original blessing, from the image of God within us, from our true selves.  As a result we feel lost, in exile, away from our true home.  We are held captive by false expectations and addictions, exploited by our culture.  We build our lives around accumulation, achievement and the constant need for human approval.

Our human condition needs liberation, it needs the healing and wholeness which is salvation. We need to make the journey home, to be brought back from exile.  We need to discover who we are in God, to be reconnected with our original identity, our belovedness.  This, in fact, is the primary purpose of religion.  It is certainly what the mission of Jesus was about.  Jesus sought to liberate people from their bondage to possessions, power and prestige; from seeking happiness in the wrong places.  He realised that people needed to be restored to their original blessing, their true selves.  He knew people needed to be helped to claim their belovedness. This is why his focus was on healing the wounds in the human heart that make us feel unworthy and inadequate.  It is why he constantly invited people to an inner transformation, to a dying to the false self and a rising to the true self.

The story of humanity as a whole and of every person as an individual can be found in the story Jesus told about the Prodigal (see Luke 15:11-32).  This is the story par excellence of our homecoming, of the journey our hearts need to make.  It is the story of a son whose search for happiness in accumulation, achievement and the approval of others ended in dissatisfaction, disappointment and eventual destitution.  It is the story of a man whose experience of falling and failing led him to realise that he was looking for happiness in the wrong places.  It is the story of a son who returned home with empty hands to find his father waiting for him with open hands.  It is the story of love experienced as gift, not achievement or requirements.  It is the story of a father, a prodigal father, whose unconditional love healed his son’s feelings of unworthiness and shame and reconnected him with his original blessing, his belovedness.  It is the universal story of what needs to happen in the life of every person if he or she is to experience healing and wholeness.

The primary purpose of religion is to reconnect us with our original blessing; it is to help us find our way back home.

In St John’s Gospel we meet a woman who wasn’t able to find the love she needed.  She thirsted for someone to love her unconditionally.  This thirst led her to look for love in the wrong places and among the wrong people.  Because she sought love in the wrong places and among the wrong people she became more and more isolated and lonely.  Why else was she visiting the village well on her own in the early afternoon, the hottest time of the day?

Then out of the blue something unexpected happened.  She had a brief encounter with a stranger and her life was never the same again.  In the presence of Jesus her longing was satisfied.  He looked into her soul and saw her hurt, her shame, her sadness, her need, her thirst.  He did not judge her; he did not condemn her; he did not reject her.  Instead, he accepted her and offered her the living water of unconditional love.  The encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman was short, but its impact was lasting.  It created a spring inside her that would well up to eternal life.

Like the Samaritan woman we too thirst for love; we long for someone to love us as we are.  This thirst can lead us also into relationships that are unstable and abusive; into situations that are damaging and hurtful.  At some point in our lives we have to acknowledge that only Jesus can offer us the kind of love that we need, a love that is truly gratuitous.  Once we do then we must learn how to access and receive this love.

There are a number of ways we can come to know the love of Jesus.  Not least among these is the willingness to create times of stillness and silence in our lives.  By having the courage and patience to sit still in silence we become aware from within that we are not alone, that we are being held by a strong yet gentle presence.  Within ourselves we know that we are being loved by Jesus in a way that does not expect us to be perfect and that does not condemn us for our weaknesses and our failures.  The love we are looking for is to be found inside.  It is there that Jesus is waiting for us, longing for us to make contact with him.

Perhaps one of the best descriptions of what I am saying is to be found in the writings of St Augustine.  In what is possibly the most beautiful passage in his Confessions Augustine tells us where and how he eventually found Jesus and the difference this made to his life.

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!  You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would not have been at all.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.  You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.  You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”

You may have had the experience of climbing a mountain.  Two things are helpful if you are to be a mountain climber.  The first has to do with determination.  Before you set off you have to make up your mind that, come what may, you are going to persevere until you reach the top.  Having a strong determination means that when you meet obstacles and difficulties you will be able to make the necessary sacrifices to overcome them.

The second thing that is helpful when you are climbing a mountain is the knowledge that a whole new vista opens up to you at the summit.  At the top of a mountain you experience a great sense of achievement and fulfilment.  But you also see the world below in an entirely new way.  Your view of the world is unimpeded, a full 360 degrees.  Indeed, on the mountaintop not only do you experience the world differently, you also experience yourself differently.  You feel good about yourself and who you are.

The season of Lent reminds us that the Christian life is a lot like climbing a mountain.  To live as a follower of Jesus we need a strong determination and a willingness to make sacrifices.  Living the Christian life can be quite demanding.  It challenges our tendency to indulge ourselves and it invites us to respond to others in a loving way.  Without a discipline of perseverance and generosity it is difficult to stay faithful to the way of Jesus.

Of course, like the journey up a mountain, the Christian journey also has a happy ending.  It leads to what we call resurrection.  At the end of our Christian pilgrimage in this world a whole new other world will be opened up to us.  We will see in a way we have never seen before.  We will see God face to face.  We will see ourselves reflected in God and we will also see other people reflected in God.  Indeed, we will find ourselves saying the same thing as Peter when he was enveloped by the presence of God on Mount Tabor: “Lord, it is wonderful for us to be here.  Let this be our home forever” (see Matthew 17:4).

What often helps mountain climbers persevere is an eye on the summit.  If they keep looking up to the mountaintop, the goal of their efforts, they are more likely to succeed in their climb.  Likewise, it is important for us as we struggle to remain faithful to the Gospel not to lose sight of the destination of our journey; heaven and a share in the risen life of Jesus.

It is no secret that the religion of Jesus can be summed up in the word love.  In his Sermon on the Mount he focuses on three things which could be described as a practical programme to help us grow in love.  These are the three things the Christian Churches invite its members to practise in earnest each year during the season of Lent.  They could be described as the non-negotiable essentials of the Christian religion.  They are prayer, almsgiving and fasting. 

“When you pray, go to your private room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is in that secret place” (Matt 6:6).  What a beautiful and accessible description of the activity of prayer!  Spend time on your own with your Father. During this time thank him for his presence in your life and for looking after you.  Talk to him in a personal way about what is happening in your life.  Ask him for the things you need, especially the things you need to help you develop a loving heart.  And, perhaps most importantly of all, hear him tell you that he loves you unconditionally, as you are.  For Jesus prayer is nothing more and nothing less than our personal act of surrender to the Father; to the Father’s love, to his help, to his healing. 

Perhaps the thing we most associate with Lent is fasting.  Jesus understood the value of fasting and promoted it in his teaching.  He knew there is a tendency in human nature towards attachment and addiction that is not healthy and balanced. Jesus wants us to keep our hearts mellow and grateful.  To keep our hearts mellow and grateful it is not enough to give up things like sweets and alcohol. We need to control our desire for possessions, power and popularity. As Jesus himself discovered during his retreat in the desert these are potent demons in the human heart that need to be tamed. Fasting is unfashionable today.  Yet never has it been so necessary.  In the so-called first world which is mainly nominally Christian we are now the most indebted, obese, addicted and medicated generation in history.  Jesus’ teaching on fasting has the power to improve our health, our relationships and our environment. 

The third thing the Lenten season invites us to practise is almsgiving.  Jesus insisted that we care for those in need and that we do this without looking for a reward. We can look at almsgiving in the specific sense of offering practical help to those who are hungry or homeless or without clothes. But we also need to look at it in the much broader sense of our attitude to life.  Our lives are not just about ourselves and our own needs.  Our lives are for others too.  When we serve others we are making a difference to their lives. We are also making a difference to our own.  It is a truth that unless and until we give our lives away to others we do not seem to have them ourselves at any deep level.

On Ash Wednesday the annual Christian fasting season, known as Lent, begins.  Most world religions have an annual fasting season.  The Christian one lasts for forty days and significantly coincides with spring.  There are many reasons why it is good for Christians to have the fasting season of Lent.  Here are a few.

Lent offers us an opportunity to start again, to make a new beginning.  Failing and falling are part of the human condition.  In the Christian view of life, failing and falling should never be a cause for despondency or despair.  The God of Jesus is a God of abundant mercy and radical forgiveness, a God who wipes out past failures and invites us to make a fresh start.  We should never be reluctant to begin again.  Indeed, our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising every time we fail. New beginnings are a necessary part of the Christian journey.  They are always life-giving.

Lent is also an ideal time to restore the balance in our lives.  Virtue is the happy medium, the golden mean.  But the golden mean is hard to achieve. There is a tendency in human nature to overindulge, to develop addictions, to abuse our bodies, to become overly preoccupied with work, to neglect important relationships, to put too much emphasis on our material needs and not enough on our emotional and spiritual needs.  Lent provides us with an opportunity to get back to a healthy diet – a healthy diet of food, of exercise, of relaxation, of prayer.  Restoring the balance in our lives helps us to sort out our priorities, to decide what is good for us and what is not good for us.

Lent is the Christian fasting season which means that it should be focused on Jesus who is the Christ.   There is really only one yardstick with which to measure the success of our Lenten fasting: Does it help us to become more like Jesus?  The heart of Christianity is not a rule of law or a code of behaviour.  It is a Person whose love we receive and whose life we seek to imitate.  Ultimately, Lent is about Jesus.  It is about Jesus’ vision of life, his values and the building of his Kingdom in the world.  Therefore, the best type of fasting we can do in Lent is the fasting that helps us pay greater attention to Jesus and move closer to him.  To use the language of St Paul, the goal of Lent is to get rid of the ‘old man’ who is the selfish me and to put on the ‘New Man’ who is the loving Jesus.