The Sacrament of Letting Go

Slowly she celebrated the sacrament of letting go.
First she surrendered her green,
then the orange, yellow, and red.
Finally she let go of her own brown.
Shedding her last leaf
she stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky,
she began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf,
she watched it journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
wearing the colours of emptiness,
her branches wondering,
how do you give shade with so much gone?

And then,
the sacrament of waiting began.
The sunrise and the sunset watched with tenderness.
Clothing her with silhouettes
they kept her hope alive.

They helped her to understand that
her vulnerability,
her dependence and need,
her emptiness, her readiness to receive,
were giving her a new kind of beauty.

Every morning and every evening they stood in silence,
and celebrated together
the sacrament of waiting.

Macrina Wiederkehr

Busyness

“What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.”  Many of us are familiar with this verse from the poem by William Henry Davies.  Many of us too are familiar with the experience the poet is describing.  There are perhaps a number of things that prevent us from taking time to stand and stare.  One in particular is rife in our culture today.  It is called busyness.

Why are we so busy?  The practical reason might be because we seem to have a lot of things to do.  But there may be a deeper reason.  Perhaps we are busy because we need to feel productive.  Perhaps we keep ourselves busy because we do not feel good about ourselves when we are doing nothing.  Perhaps we need to be busy because our value comes from what we do, not from who we are.  Measuring ourselves by our usefulness is called utilitarianism, a philosophy that originated back at the beginning of the 19th century and has penetrated into the very core of our being.  The Anglo Saxon work ethic dominates our western culture and has a huge impact not only on the way we see ourselves, but, more importantly, on the way we feel about ourselves.

Perhaps another reason we keep ourselves busy is because we believe that we need to earn the acceptance and approval of Jesus.  “Look busy! Jesus is coming!” is a voice that has influenced our religious experience. It creates a double whammy that leaves us struggling.  Not only is busyness something we expect of ourselves; it is also something Jesus expects of us.  This is bad religion and a terrible misunderstanding of the good news of the Gospel.  Jesus’ love does not have to be earned. It is GIFT, not achievement.  Who we are is much more important to Jesus than what we do. He allows us to be and to rejoice in our ways of being.  This is what it means to be loved unconditionally by him.  Jesus is happy for us to take time to stand and stare.   Our culture may make us feel guilty doing it, but Jesus doesn’t!

My Surrender Prayer


Abba God,
I welcome everything that comes to me today.
I welcome all persons and situations,
thoughts and feelings.

I let go of my need to accumulate.
I let go of my need to be busy.
I let go of my need for approval.
I let go of my need to feel important.
I let go of my need to be in control.
I let go of my need to change others.

Abba God,
I accept your unconditional love.
Help me to recognise your presence in my life.
Amen.

My Answer

“But you, who do you say I am?” (Matt 16:15).  Jesus is not interested in who we think other people say he is, people like priests and teachers and theologians and charismatics.  He is only interested in who I say he is.  The question of his identity is addressed personally to each one of us and it can only be answered by each of us in a personal way.

So who do I say Jesus is?  For me, who is the human person who grew up in a remote village, who worked for most of his short life as a tradesman, who spent three years preaching, teaching, healing, and serving, who died a cruel death on a cross and who appeared to his followers after his death?  Who do I say this man is?  Peter told him that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt 16:16).  Am I able and willing to make the same act of faith as Peter?  ‘Jesus, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’  When it comes to the question of Jesus’ identity there is no sitting on the fence, no opting out.  I may delay offering an answer, but sooner or later I have to make a decision.

The question that Jesus asks each of us personally and directly is the most important question we will ever be asked.  It is the question that needs to be answered by us in the silence of our own hearts.  How we answer the question will have an impact on our lives.  It will make a difference to how we experience the world and to the way we live.  If I say, ‘Jesus, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ then I am accepting that Jesus is the person who saves me from the evils that threaten me, including death.  What is more, I am also accepting that the values of Jesus are the values I need to live by.   To accept Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, is to accept that there are many things that he can do for me.  But it is also to accept that there are things that he would like me to do for him.  To accept Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, is to take possession of the relationship he has with me and to make this relationship the anchor of my life.

An Act of Trust

There is a defining moment in the life of the great Abraham who is often referred to as our Father in Faith.  God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. This was a huge ask for Abraham.  Isaac was the child of his old age, his pride and joy, his only hope of posterity. 

On the face of it, it seems cruel for God to ask Abraham to let go of his beloved son.   But God needed to put Abraham to the test.  It was important that the man God had chosen to be our Father in Faith would have complete trust in God.  We know that Abraham responded to God’s request.  He did what God invited him to do.  He abandoned himself totally to God.  In response God not only spared the life of Isaac.  He also showered blessings in abundance on Abraham and his descendants. “I make a vow by my own name – the Lord is speaking – that I will richly bless you.  Because you did this and did not keep back your only son from me, I promise that I will give you as many descendants as there are stars in the sky or grains of sand along the seashore.  Your descendants will conquer their enemies.  All the nations will ask me to bless them as I have blessed your descendants – all because you obeyed my command” (Genesis 22:16-18).

As we go through life our faith in God is tested.  Difficult and painful experiences like failure, rejection, disappointment and sickness make us wonder if God is really loving and caring. Often in the face of suffering the silence of God can be deafening.  Like Abraham, we have a choice to make.  We can either trust God in the hope that God will eventually bring good out of our pain or we can blame God for the distress we find ourselves in.  Suffering can either draw us closer to God or make us bitter.

It is important for us to realise that God does not cause human suffering.  Free will does.  However, God uses our suffering to strengthen our trust.  God can best work in our lives when we allow ourselves to depend on him.  Self-sufficiency keeps us distant from God; surrender brings us near to God. Growth in our spiritual lives requires deeper levels of surrender and trust.  Abraham was richly rewarded for his great act of surrender and trust.  So will we.

A Feast in August

A number of times each year the Christian community remembers Mary, the Mother of Jesus. One of these occasions occurs on 15th August. This celebrates what happened at the end of Mary’s earthy life.  It is known as the Feast of the Assumption.

From earliest times there was a conviction among the people of God that when Mary’s life on earth came to an end her body did not experience corruption and the decay of death.  In other words, when her earthly life was over, Mary was taken as she was into the glory of heaven.  It is significant that Mary does not have a tomb.  There is no burial place at which to venerate her.

The Feast of the Assumption proclaims Mary as our beacon of hope.  Where she is now, we one day hope to be.  Her destiny is our destiny; her destination is our destination.  The Assumption of Mary offers us an opportunity to remember that we are a pilgrim people.  We have here no lasting city. Our true homeland is in heaven.  Our big thing is in the future; the best is yet to come.  The truth is we will not be happy until we get to where Mary is, until we experience what Mary is experiencing, until we share fully in the life and love of God.  We have been made for the enjoyment of God and our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

The Feast of the Assumption of Mary affirms that she was taken up body and soul into heaven.  Her body was sacred and as she left this world it was immediately transformed into a glorified body.  In the Apostles’ Creed we profess our belief in the resurrection of the body.  Like Mary, our bodies will also be included in our experience of resurrection, not immediately, but eventually.  For this reason it is important that we respect our bodies and take good care of them. Taking care of our bodies means a healthy diet, proper sleep and regular exercise.  It means not taking risks that may harm our own bodies and the bodies of others.  Taking care of our bodies also means listening to them for they often reveal what is going on inside of us, especially what is happening in our emotional life.   

Reminding the young church at Corinth about the sacredness of the body this is what St Paul said: “Do you not realise that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you and whom you received from God? You are not your own property, then; you have been bought at a price.  So use your body for the glory of God” (1Cor 6:19-20).  The feast of the Assumption reminds us that Mary used her body for the glory of God.  It is an invitation to us to do the same.

Radical Grace

Jesus once told a parable about a landowner who hired labourers to work in his vineyard (See Matt 20:1-16).  Some started work in the early morning, some at midday and some in the early evening.  In his generosity the landowner paid exactly the same wage to all who worked for him during the course of the day.  The actions of the landowner do appear to be unfair, even unjust.  Those who worked all day in the blazing hot sun received the same wage as those who worked one hour in the cool of the evening.

Today’s employers would certainly not get away with this approach to remuneration.  Ours is a culture of trade unions and worker’s rights and hourly rates of pay.  It is a culture of entitlement.  But Jesus’ parable is not about human rights and entitlements.  It is not about human justice.  It is about God.  It is about God’s abundant goodness and generosity. God isn’t generous towards us on the basis of what is right and fair and just.  God is generous towards us because we are his children, his sons and daughters whom he loves equally.

What Jesus is teaching us in this parable is this: we cannot buy or earn God’s love.  God’s love is free.  It is a gift, a pure gift offered to all without exception.  This is what we mean when we say that God loves us unconditionally.  There are no conditions attached to the way God loves.  The little word ‘if’ is not in God’s dictionary!  In practice this means that the Christian life is not about winning God’s approval and God’s favour.  It is not about making ourselves acceptable to God by our good deeds and our efforts to please him.  When we love we do so in response to God’s love for us; not in order to make God love us.

The renowned Lutheran theologian, Paul Tillich, has described the experience of being saved as our acceptance of the fact that we are accepted unconditionally by God.  God’s salvation is free and we must accept it freely.  The Father’s love is gift, not achievement.  Those who came at the twelfth hour got the same wage as those who came at the first hour because God does not love those who came at the twelfth hour any less than those who came at the first hour.  This is what we mean by radical grace.

Belonging to the Kingdom

Even a brief look at the gospels reveals that a constant theme in the teaching of Jesus was the Kingdom of God.  Jesus made it clear that he had come to establish the Kingdom of God in the world.  His mission was to practice and preach the Kingdom.  The ministry of Jesus was to bring about the reign of God in our lives. 

For Jesus, the Kingdom of God is not a place or a territory.  It has nothing to do with geography or nationalism or indeed political power.  It is clear from the example and teaching of Jesus that the Kingdom of God is a way of life; it is about the values we chose to live by.  In particular, it is about the way we relate to each other.  In a word, it is about love.

Who then belongs to the Kingdom of God?  It would seem those who are sincerely trying to live what is known as the beatitudes in their daily lives.  These are the peacemakers, the gentle, the humble, the merciful, those who work for justice, those who are persecuted in the cause of right, those who have mellow and grateful hearts.   Jesus preaches a religion of the heart and his religion is about developing attitudes that create a right relationship with ourselves, other people, the environment and of course God.

It is important for us to realise that those who belong to the Kingdom of God may be members of the Church, but they may not. We cannot limit the Kingdom of God to the Church. To do so would be exclusive and misleading. Obviously the Church is a community where we are meant to experience the Kingdom of God, but there are many people who belong to the Kingdom of God who do not belong to the Church.  Indeed, there might be people who belong to the Kingdom of God and who do not have a conscious awareness of God in their lives.  We call these ‘anonymous Christians.’  Kingdom people are sincere people who show kindness and seek to do good. They try to make the world a better place, often working quietly in the background.  Kingdom people are a leaven in society.  They may not have a public profile but their positive influence is significant, reaching well beyond themselves and beyond even what they dare to imagine.  

Towards the end of St Matthew’s Gospel (chapter 25) Jesus makes it clear that we will be judged by the way we treat our neighbours, especially those who are struggling and suffering.  Surely this is the same yardstick for deciding who belongs to the Kingdom of God.

The Power of Love

Of all religious symbols I think it is fair to say that the most familiar and perhaps most popular is the cross.  Christians are baptised with the sign of the cross.  They begin their prayer with the sign of the cross.  The cross is hung in church buildings and religious institutions.  It is placed on top of monuments and displayed in many of our homes.  It is even worn as a piece of jewellery around the neck and in the form of a broch.

So why does the cross have such significance for us?  “This thing called love,” to quote the words of a well-known song by the late Johnny Cash. For Christians the cross is above all a symbol of love.  It is the symbol of the love we all hunger for, desire and need.

We cannot separate is the cross from love.  The cross makes no sense apart from love.  Jesus changed the cross from a symbol of failure and death to a symbol of victory and hope by his radical love.   Jesus lived by the ‘rule’ of love and he died in fidelity to this love.     

“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  These are perhaps the most quoted words of scripture, displayed in all sorts of places and for all sorts of gatherings.  The greatest and most powerful revelation of God’s love was the death of his own beloved Son on the cross.  The cross is the symbol of the unconditional love that God has for each and every human person.  As we gaze at the cross how could we doubt that we are infinitely loved, how could we refuse to accept that we are cherished, precious, valued?  Through the symbol of the cross God says to each one of us, “I love you.”   

Unconditional love is the greatest power in the world.  It has the power to motivate, to liberate, to heal, to transform.  It even has the power to change death into life.  The power of the cross is the power of unconditional love. This is why Jesus said, “When I am lifted up on the cross I will draw all people to myself” (John 12: 32).  It is why the followers of Jesus continue to find hope and comfort in the cross.  And it is why the cross will always be the most used and most popular religious symbol of all.

Lord Jesus, each time I bless myself with the sign of the cross may I remember that you love me personally, intimately and unconditionally.

In All Things

Contemplative spirituality invites us to find God in all things. This invitation is based on the belief that God’s presence is revealed in and through the totality of our human lives.  We cannot limit God’s presence to the ‘religious bits,’ to what happens in church, to times of prayer, to the celebration of the sacraments. God’s presence is manifested in our encounters with other people, in our relationships, in the inner stirring of our hearts, in art and music and nature, in our times of leisure, in our pain and struggles, in the events of our daily lives.  All these things and more are sources of God’s revelations.  They are the window that looks inward to God.  The human life of every person is the holy ground, the sacred place, where God is met and known. 

For most people recognising the ways in which God is present in their lives does not come naturally.  Tuning into God’s presence is in fact an art and a discipline that needs to be cultivated.  Among the things that can help us to grow in contemplative awareness let me mention three.

(1) Take time to stand and stare.  Most people today are too busy to stand. Perhaps this is because they get their value from their work. A lot of the time we are in overdrive, under pressure to do, to achieve, to produce.  It seems we are not allowed to be anymore.  Perhaps we have lost the art of play.  Play is not only for children.  It is for adults too.  Play is a non-productive activity.  It allows us to be and to rejoice in the act of being. By taking time to stand we are free to stare.  Staring is a particular way of seeing, of looking at reality.  To stare is not to analyse or define reality.  It is to enter into communion with reality.  In the words of the late William McNamara it is to take a long loving look at the real. To be willing to take a long loving look at the real opens us to the reality of God and allows us to glimpse the God of reality.

(2) Pay greater attention to what is happening around you and within you.  There is an old Portuguese proverb which says, “When God wants to hide something he places it right in front of our eyes.”  Often God is staring us in the face and we do not see him!  Elizabeth Browning puts this well when she says, “Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God.  But only he who sees takes off his shoes.  The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.”  Perhaps we do not recognise God because we do not expect to find God in the ordinary things of life.  But the truth is earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God.  Believing God is in the ordinary is one thing, being attentive to the ordinary is another.  Unless we are really paying attention to what is happening in our lives we are unlikely to notice the divine presence.  The practice of mindfulness, widespread today, is a way of paying attention to what is happening in our lives. This art can help us to develop our capacity to recognise the presence of God in all that is real.

(3) Practice a form of prayer known as the examen or review of awareness.  The examen is a form of prayer that comes from the Ignatian tradition.  In practice it involves spending about ten minutes before bedtime looking back over the day in the light of the question:  Where was God in my life today?  Gently surveying the day with this question in mind helps us to notice the way God is working is our lives and to realise how we can in fact find God in all things. It also increases our sensitivity to the movements, often subtle, of the Holy Spirit.