Seeking Forgiveness

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. (Matt. 5:23-24)

The word religion comes from the Latin religare meaning to relate. Christianity consists of two types of relation: to love God above everything and everyone, and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves. These two commandments are inseparable both in theory and in practice.

It is not possible to establish a relationship with God when I have broken relations with others. As long as I do not repair these broken relations with my neighbours, God will turn His back on me; therefore, all my efforts to relate with Him will be counterproductive, that is, my efforts to establish a relationship with God will amount to nothing as long as I am angry with my neighbours. Furthermore, to paraphrase St. John, how can you ask God for forgiveness whom you cannot see, if you do not ask for forgiveness from your neighbour whom you can see.

Inevitability of conflict in human relations
Conflicts are unavoidable in human relations. Conflicts divide people into aggressors and objects of aggression. In order for peace to be restored, the aggressors need to ask for forgiveness, while the ones who have been aggressed need to forgive. To forgive and to ask for forgiveness are therefore two sides of the same coin. This is because there are times when we are the aggressors and at others we are the objects of someone’s aggression, for throughout our lives there will be plenty of occasions for all of us to ask for forgiveness and to forgive. For some it is more difficult to forgive, for others, to ask for forgiveness.

When forgiveness is not asked for or granted, the aggressor and the aggressed cannot move on and end up tied to a past that both refuse to leave behind, resulting in the pair living in a condition of continuous present perfect, that is, in a state where the action that started in the past continues into the present.

Those who do not ask for or grant forgiveness hold a grudge forever. Something that has happened in the past at a particular place is happening again and again at all times and all places since the feelings felt there and then are still being felt here and now. The offender who has not asked for forgiveness is still offending and now not only the one whom he offended but also himself, since not having asked for forgiveness has made him a victim of his own pride. The offended who is not able to forgive, on the other hand, not only is still being offended but is also paying for something that he has not done.

Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. (Eph. 4:26-27)

An offense done in the past should have remained in the past; as St. Paul advises the Ephesians not to let even one day go by without interchanging forgiveness between the offender and the offended; and if we let one day go by then more likely a second day will also go by and then as St. Paul warns, we give an opportunity for evil to infest, as we start to nurse our grudge thus infecting the whole of our person.

When the offender and the offended do not take the responsibility to face each other in forgiveness, the offense nursed by both grows and drains them of their energy; it then becomes omnipresent in the mind and heart of the pair, hurting and bothersome like a pebble in the shoe. It places the two in an unstable climate of cold war with the possibility of an imminent conflict always likely to erupt.

To forgive and to forget
Oftentimes we hear the expression that the one who has not forgotten has not forgiven. In a way it is true if by not forgetting it means that we are still resentful and still holding a grudge. Does this mean that in order to really forgive, we have to have an amnesia of our past or have a sort of selective Alzheimer?

The answer lies in the different ways of remembering the offense; first, a forgiven offense comes less frequently to mind than an unforgiven one; second, a forgiven offense when it does come to mind does not generate the negative feelings it previously used to do, it acts now like a deactivated virus. It does not have the ability to evoke anger, hatred or resentment in the offended towards the offender. On the other hand, an unforgiven offense comes to mind often and every time it does, it makes the hatred and resentment grow in intensity.

The ball is in your court
“A thief believes that everyone is a thief” – Most offenders project their personality and capability over the ones they have offended and do not apologize because they are afraid of not being forgiven. Since the offense brings pain to both parties, and chains both to the past, each one should be made responsible for his own part in the conflict, and do what is expected of him to resolve it without being calculative about what the other one is doing to help the cause.

Our enemies are not those who hate us but rather those whom we hate – Most of the time the offended stops being angry at us the moment we ask for forgiveness and the relation is restored and oftentimes the friendship even grows deeper.

I know my offense, and recognize where I have failed like the prodigal son. I make the first move to apologize to the one I have offended. If that person forgives me then all is fine, but even if I am not forgiven, it is still equally okay; the ball is now in his court even if he refuses to forgive me; the stress, the anxiety and the remorse from the guilt that used to surround me disappears from my mind and heart because I have unloaded it and freed myself of it by doing what was required of me and what was within my reach. I cannot force the other person to forgive me; if he decides to stay in the past then he will be there alone without me.

To ask for forgiveness is not humiliating
For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Lk. 14:11) – Whoever admits his mistake and apologizes in a way is humbling himself, but this humility will surely lead to exaltation. However, whoever does not admit his mistake and does not apologize is acting out of pride, self-exaltation and arrogance which will surely lead to humiliation.

Oftentimes what prevent us from asking for forgiveness is the fear of being humiliated by the person we have offended, but in reality when we humble ourselves by apologizing for our offense we are placed in better light in the eyes of the person we offended.  On the other hand, when we do not admit to our mistakes and do not apologize we might feel good within the walls of our pride and arrogance, but in reality we look pathetic and are downgraded in the eyes of the person to whom we owe an apology. If we manage to put aside our natural feelings and embrace the reality, we will all be better off, more in peace and in harmony with both God and our neighbours.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Saints are those who see themselves as sinners

Pope Francis making his confession

A Rabbi used to say that the sinners were closer to God than the righteous. And he explained it by saying that as a means of communication, there exists a thread that links our head to the hand of God. Each time we sin the thread breaks and as the result so does our communication with God. But each time we recognize our sin, and we repent, a knot is made to tie the broken threads together thus restoring the communication. When by chance we return to sin and again we repent, another knot is made; and as we keep sinning and repenting, the thread becomes every time shorter. In this way the Rabbi concluded, sinners are closer to God than the righteous.

The declared saints
The Church has a formal process that tends to be time consuming to declare someone a saint. First, responding to the petition of the faithful because of “fame of sanctity” of that particular person, the biography of the respective candidate is analyzed with a fine comb: virtues and flaws, writings, sermons, works. If the prospects are good, a postulator is appointed and the candidate is declared “Servant of God”.

The postulator then examines carefully the life of the candidate for sainthood and presents his conclusions to the Pope who declares the candidate “Venerable” meaning that the Servant of God lived the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, in a heroic way.

Since the cause of beatification and canonization appears at times to be a tribunal case, beside the figure of the postulator stands the caricatured figure of “the devil’s advocate”. During the entire process, while the postulator finds ways to prove the virtues of the candidate, the devil’s advocate, who in our civil process is the district attorney or the prosecutor, seeks to remove the importance placed on the virtues by evidencing the flaws of the candidate.

The next step is beatification. If the candidate was a martyr, and has been sufficiently proven that he gave his life in defense of the faith, the pope declares him Blessed. If the candidate was not martyred then heaven must decide, that is, the postulator must present a miracle, which must be proven to have taken place through the intercession of the Venerable.

Lastly, the Blessed is declared Saint with the accreditation of a second miracle, which proves that the candidate is already enjoying the Beatific Vision. To him or her a feast day is assigned in the Church calendar, and he or she can be declared the patron saint of parish churches and the faithful can freely and without restriction, celebrate and honour the Saint.

The undeclared saints
“Not all those who live in a psychiatric residence are crazy and not all who are crazy live in a psychiatric residence”, says a Spanish proverb. After seeing how they have hastened some canonizations in recent times to satisfy the wishes or conveniences of some, I dare to use the same expression about the saints… not all who have been declared saints are indeed saints, and not all who are saints have been declared such.

There were, there are, and there will always be people who lived like saints without ever been noticed and declared such; for this reason, the Church created a solemn day to celebrate the never declared saints, that is, those whom the Eucharistic prayer refers to as those “whose faith and dedication to your service is well known”. They are given honour and veneration like the unknown soldiers of wars.

Saint is synonym for Christian
All the saints greet you, especially those of the emperor’s household. (Phil. 4:22)

To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father. (Col. 1:2)

The disciples were called Christians, first in Antioch, says the book of The Acts of the Apostles. It was a name given by the outsiders, that is, by those who did not follow Christ and as such it was meant to have negative connotations associated with that name. “Christians” was not the name by which the early Christians were known. As we can see from the second text, Christians who were well known for treating each other as brothers and sisters in Christ were addressed as saints and faithful.

To call someone a saint when officially not yet true, according to the process described above, brings with it an implicit calling to sanctity. For this same reason we call Christians those who strive to be like Christ, such as St. Paul – when he said, “It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2:20) – but it does not mean that they are already there.

Saints are those who recognize themselves as sinners
“He who stops wanting to be better, stops being good”. (St. Bernard)
There are two types of people: those who are not aware of their faults and do nothing to be better, and those who are aware of their faults and make efforts to be better every day.

Those who do nothing to improve themselves do not stay always the same, on the contrary, each day they become progressively worse. In the moral life, like in the nature, there is a law of gravity; whoever is not going up is coming down; whoever, aware of his imperfections, does nothing to be better each day, will not remain as he is but will go from bad to worse; whoever does not progress will regress.

When I lose the awareness that I am a sinner, then I am truly lost. St. Francis of Assisi, was perhaps the one person who came the closest to almost fully imitate Christ to the point of being called the “Alter Christus” and despite being in life already regarded as a great saint by his companions, he saw himself as a sinner and used to run down the streets of Assisi like a madman shouting, “I am a great sinner”. In fact, the truly wise judge themselves as ignorant, only the ignorant believe themselves to be wise; the true saints judge themselves as sinners, only some sinners believe they are saints.

I may have come far on the path of holiness, but what makes me grow even more, what makes me progress even more is to be able to find sins, defects, and imperfections in my life. For this, all I need is to refine my self-consciousness by making it sharper with the Gospel and surely I will always find something I need to change in myself. The true saints do not see themselves as such; on the contrary, they consider themselves sinners.

The true saints, after having converted from great sins, continually seek, in their conscience, other offenses that escape the examination of conscience of less holy people. They are really nitpicky in examining the bottom of their conscience, finding always something to accuse themselves, therefore they are always in a continuous process of conversion.

In the parable of the sower, the soil is to be blamed when nothing grows; a good soil is that which brings growth, it does not matter that it be 30% or 60% or 100%. What is important is that it produces, a bit or a lot, the quantity is of a lesser importance. We are not called to be the best, but we are called to give our best. Similarly, in the parable of the talents, what is important is not to hide the talent but to be accountable for it, the percentage of the profit being secondary.

homo simul iustus et peccator – On the path to sanctity the human person is and will always be both a saint and a sinner at the same time. To be holy is to walk on this path where today we are better than we were yesterday but not as good as we will be tomorrow. More than a state of being or a goal, to be holy is a process of perfection impelled and motivated by the ever presence of our consciousness of being a sinner.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

To Be and Ought-To-Be

Why do you see the speck in your neighbour’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, “Let me take the speck out of your eye”, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye. (Matt. 7:3-5)

To criticize others is almost always a negative thing; the so called “constructive criticism” is nothing more than an opportunity, unconscious and subvert, to rebuke and humiliate someone while exalting ourselves; in fact, whenever we demean someone we exalt ourselves, and whenever we praise ourselves we demean someone. There is an implicit humiliation in all exaltations.

The one in contradiction with you could be a great friend, deliver yourself from those who always agree with you.  (António Aleixo)

What distinguishes a negative criticism from a positive one is the proven friendship that we have with the person whom we criticize. We only have the “right” to criticize someone we love and whose values we recognize. And even then, the criticism can only come after an affirmation of those merits. So if we neither recognize nor affirm them in that person, we have no right to criticize him or her, and if we still choose to do so, the criticism will most probably be negative.

The general psychosis of our days
Without self-consciousness we do not know ourselves, and without self-criticism there is neither personal growth nor progress. As it has been said above, if on the one hand, it is almost always negative to criticize others, then on the other hand, it is almost always positive to criticize oneself. What we are and what we ought to be are never the same; it is the awareness of this reality that impels us to grow and to progress in life.

“Love is like the moon, when it is not increasing in brightness and size, it is decreasing” – Placed on a moving planet, we must be aware that at the physical level nothing in the reality that surrounds us and what forms our being is static. The same happens at the spiritual and moral level. When we are not striving to be better, we will decline and become worse and worse

To live is like flying in an airplane; without the thrust of the engines to maintain the altitude or to climb higher, we inevitably descend; there is no inertia or a law of gravity to propel us upwards, for it always pushes us downwards. Automatically, without effort and without consciousness, we always do what our animal nature dictates to us through instincts, which is almost always bad both at the personal as well as at the social level.

The death of conscience
For John had been telling Herod, ‘It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.’ And Herodias had a grudge against him, and wanted to kill him. But she could not, for Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed, and yet he liked to listen to him. (…) Herod on his birthday gave a banquet (...). When his daughter Herodias came in and danced, she pleased Herod and his guests; and the king said to the girl, “Ask me for whatever you wish (…) ‘I want you to give me at once the head of John the Baptist on a platter.’ (Mk. 6:18-25)

He who does not live the way he thinks, ends up thinking the way he lives – Whoever, despite the effort to be better, fails to adapt his life, his actions and his behaviour to the dictates of his moral conscience, will end up adjusting his moral conscience to the reality of his life, and thus justifying and rationalizing his actions and behaviour.

In order to preserve the person’s mental health, the battle cannot continue indefinitely. Too much time spent on indecisiveness will drive the individual to neurosis; he either adapts his way of living to his moral values, or adapts his moral values to his way of living. Whoever cannot adapt his life to his way of thinking will end up adapting his way of thinking to his way of life, thus killing his moral conscience.

The story of the execution of John the Baptist can serve as a parable to illustrate or exemplify the death of Herod’s moral conscience. Herod acknowledged that John the Baptist was right, that taking and living with his brother’s wife was morally wrong. John was Herod’s moral conscience that could speak but could not act and therefore was imprisoned. Herod liked to listen to the truth but lacked the will to put it into practice; hence he went about his life without deciding until the circumstances of life decided for him.
 
Collective psychosis
The death of moral conscience, which regulates our life and guides and judges our everyday acts, leads to psychosis. A psychotic is a cold and cruel person without feelings, and who can hurt or be a bystander to the sufferings of others without compassion; in severe cases, a psychotic can escalate to torture and kill without the least sense of guilt or remorse. The lack of an accusatory moral conscience, common in many people today, could be diagnosed as a chronic collective psychosis.

‘I have no sins’, this is what we hear in the confessional nowadays. Because our lives are focused on the distant, and not on the near, we see the speck in our neighbour’s eye and not the log that is in our own. Our conscience, which distinguishes us from the rest of the living beings that inhabit this planet, and which is the result of an evolution that lasted five million years, is not always there to help us. Much of our behaviour, what we say, what we do and even much of what we think, work independently of our will, that is, we live on auto-pilot for the most part throughout our day.

Two friends upon meeting after some time without seeing each other, said one to the other, “I was told that you sold your old car to our friend Anthony for an exorbitant price, the car was worth much less than what you had asked for, you cheated the poor man”. “I cheated no one, what I did was a good business deal,” answered the seller. Saddened, and shaking his head in disapproval, his friend said, “I see… But I know that you are a practicing Catholic, when you kneel for a confession, what do you tell the priest?” “To the priest,” the seller said, “I tell him my sins not my business transactions.”

“You just sprayed sulphur on those cabbages yesterday and it looks like you are going to sell them already, should you not wait because it is dangerous? “Don’t worry” said the farmer, “I am not the one who is going to be eating them” – In our world the personal or collective profit is a principle that is placed above all else including the wellness of the public. This man may not eat these cabbages, but he does consume other agricultural produce that are grown and treated in the same manner just like the food that is produced industrially. When profit is placed above the health of the public no one wins; everybody loses.

The same is true of tax evasion, a sin that in my thirty-one year of priesthood I have never heard anyone mention in the confessional. Apparently or in the short term, whoever evades wins, keeping more money in his pockets, but in reality or in the long term, everybody loses, the evader included.

The sacrament of self-examination
The sacrament of penance, or confession, is in itself an exercise of self-examination. Only few people use it and of those who do, many do it out of routine or to observe the precept of the Church that exhorts Catholics to confess and receive the Holy Communion at least once a year during the Easter season. This is not done, therefore, out of necessity or for spiritual growth, but out of obligation.

And because it is done out of obligation and routine, when the penitents kneel in front of the confessor, they do not know what to say and resort to reciting a long-winded and often repeated list: to kill I did not kill, to steal I did not steal etc. For as hard as I try to scrutinize, without having the morbid curiosity of certain old confessors, I cannot decipher any personal sins and oftentimes what I hear are the sins of others, of the husband, the children, the in-laws and daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law etc.; how many times I had to stop the penitent from rambling on and remind him or her that I cannot forgive the sins of others but only his or her own…

I compare our moral consciousness to the sieves that were once used to sift and purify flour, by removing impurities which were the bran used to feed the hens, leaving behind the white flour used for baking.   The finer and smaller the mesh size of the sieves, the purer and whiter the resulting flour.

The moral consciences of many people nowadays are too lax; the mesh of their “sieves” is too course, or so filled with holes that the sifting action lets everything pass through thus retaining no impurities. It is therefore not true that they have not committed any sins because they have, but they are unaware of doing so because their conscience did not accuse them nor did it retain the sins. The righteous, says the Bible, sin seven times a day; seven being the perfect number meaning that one sins many times. So if a righteous person sees himself as a sinner, then who are we to say that we are not…

To drown in guilt like Judas
In the antipodes of the lax conscience, lie the scrupulous conscience; the one that cannot free itself from guilt.

One day a woman went to her parish priest and revealed to him that God often appeared to her. The incredulous pastor, in order to confirm the truthfulness of these apparitions or ironically to be amused at the expense of the lady, gave her permission to ask God to tell her his sins, thinking to himself, only God knows my sins, and if she tells me some of them then I will have to believe in these apparitions. The lady, taking seriously the proposal of the pastor without realizing the irony, went home. After few days have passed she came back to see the priest, the latter with an air of mockery asked, “So did God come back and reappear to you?” “Yes He did, Father,” she answered. “And did you ask Him about my sins?” “Indeed I did, Father,” she said. “And so what did God say?” inquired the priest. “With respect to your sins, Father, God told me that He had already forgotten them.”

There is no misery that is greater than the Divine Mercy. God forgives us and forgets, He turns the page which is something that we do not do easily. God knows us better than we know ourselves, loves us more than we love ourselves, and even in cases of healthy self-esteem, He also forgives us much more readily than we forgive ourselves.

At the end of a fratricide war between the Hindus and the Muslims, during the independence process of India, a Hindu went to Gandhi to see if he could help him get rid of his guilt. He told the story of how one day, during the war, he entered the house of a Muslim family where he saw a Muslim woman breastfeeding her baby, he snatched the baby from the mother’s arms and hurled it against the walls. The image of the baby smashed against the wall with its blood flowing out, he said, “follows me wherever I go, I am living in hell…” Gandhi, to help him rid of his guilt, proposed that he adopts a Muslim baby, from the many that were left orphaned by the war, and to bring him up in the Muslim faith.

In my thirty-one of ministry, there have been quite a few women eighty plus years of age who are still confessing obsessively, again and again, the abortion that they had committed when they were teenagers. The scrupulous believe more in a vengeful God, the human way, than in a God of love. It is an offense against God not to believe in His pardon, when God can do nothing else…

…erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2:14)

God forgives and forgets, as St. Paul suggests, He destroys the invoice of our debt so not to be reminded of it; it is us who by our nature cannot forgive nor forget. The purgatory, of which the Bible does not speak directly, was created by God not because He needs us to expiate our guilt, but because we need to atone for our own guilt.

To recognize and to cry over the mistake like Peter
(Before the miraculous catch of fish) when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’ (Lk. 5:8)

“In medio vírtus” – Between the two extremes, the lax and the scrupulous moral conscience, stands out Peter’s moral conscience, which is neither lax nor scrupulous. Peter has before God the right attitude that all sinners should have; he acknowledges his own sinfulness by seeing the power of God manifested in Jesus Christ with respect to the miraculous catch of fish.

The episode of the miraculous catch proves that it was not the denial of the Master, a sin equivalent to the betrayal of Judas, which gave Peter the consciousness of being a sinner; Peter always had the awareness that before God there is no one who is not a sinner.

In conclusion, since what we are and what we are called to be never match, a life that is not routinely examined, as the Greek philosopher Socrates says, is not worth living; therefore, we can only improve and grow as persons through self-knowledge, that is, to know what is wrong with our own selves. Just like the way a GPS operates, we can only know the road to where we want to go after knowing where we are at the present moment of our journey; as well as in medicine, we cannot be cured of a disease that has not yet been diagnosed.

                                            Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The Rich man and Lazarus

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham.

The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was being tormented, he looked up and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side. He called out, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.” But Abraham said, “Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. (Luke 16:19-25)

This is the only story that Jesus told in the form of vignettes to show the reversal of life and fortune between two men as they pass from this world to the next. In the first vignette, we get a glimpse of a temporary heaven of luxury and pleasure of a rich man in contrast to a temporary hell of penury and misery of the poor man Lazarus. In the second vignette, their lives and fortunes are reversed; the rich man from an unsolicitous life of pleasure now lives in the eternal hell of misery and suffering while poor Lazarus from a destitute life of misery now lives in the eternal heaven of abundance and consolation.

Death, which in nature is nothing more than a passage between two different forms of life, is also presented here as a bridge between the stage of life on earth and the stage of life in heaven and hell. Contrary to what most think, death is not the great leveler that makes everyone equal. In view of this parable, told by the One who had said, “you always have the poor with you” (Jn. 12:8), the social inequalities that we encounter here on earth we will find reversed in heaven. For this reason, social equality is a utopia that should inspire and guide our actions at all times and in all places.

The poor who sits at our gate
The parable does not give us the rich man’s name, he does not have a human identity because he is defined not by who he is but by the way he lives, as are many rich people still today:

Dressed in purple and fine linen – The rich man does not have a name because his identity is not determined from inside out, but rather from outside in. It is the purple and the fine linen that describe him, his status is bestowed on him by the type of garment he wears. Whoever feels like a Mr. Nobody uses a certain deception to fill up the hollowness of his soul: branded goods, last generation cellphones, top of the line cars…

Many young people today, in our schools, instead of seeking good reputation in moral and academic performances, seek branded clothes. They buy expensive sweaters that display oversized logos in the front. Being expensive, the clothes give them a certain “prestige” that they crave for; however, aside from having paid a lot for the sweaters, they are also providing free advertisement for the brand every time they wear them. They show off at the expense of the brand, as the brand makes them pay dearly, and even shows itself off at their expense. In the end, I do not know who gains the most, the young people or the brand.

Feasted sumptuously every day – The poor have banquets only occasionally, in contrast, the rich have them every day. The poor have fun from time to time, the rich live to have fun. For the rich, life is not to be lived but to be enjoyed and consumed because it is nothing more than a pastime.

The rich are not criticized for being rich, but for being unsolicitous; the treasures in the gospels have the same worth as the talents, they are not to be possessed but to be used for the common good, by that it means that they are to be well managed. The greater the economic capability of an individual, the greater his social responsibility. As the Gospel reminds us, “… to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Lk. 12:48). The poor man who sits at our gate, or who crosses our path, is not always in need of bread and clothing; sometimes he only needs that we give him our time and lend him our ears; the human person needs many things and many of them are in the forms of help.

For the rich man, Lazarus was nothing more than an aspect of the landscape to which he had grown accustomed. His life of luxury has numbed him and made him insensitive to the misery and suffering that lay at his gate. Unlike with the rich man, the parable tells us the name of the poor man, which in Hebrew is Eleazar meaning “my God has helped”.

Alone, sick and without sustenance, the poor man is at the gate of life from the outside, living in the hope of feeding on the crumbs that fell from the plentiful table of the rich man, but not even this was granted to him. Jesus, the author of this parable, finishes the first vignette or account by saying that the dogs would come and lick Lazarus’ sores. The humans have an inhumane and irrational attitude towards Lazarus; in contrast, the dogs, the irrational beings, have a “humane” attitude towards him.

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; (…) he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. (Isa. 53:4-5)

According to the Songs of the Servant of Yahweh in Isaiah, the wounds of Christ have healing power for us. In the same way, the salvation of the rich man was in the wounds of the poor man Lazarus, because as Matthew 25 states, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

“He who gives to the poor lends to God” as the saying goes. In fact, if the rich save the poor in this life, then it is the poor who save the rich in the next. In this parable, it is the dogs that benefit from the curative properties of Lazarus’ wounds. Let us recall that the Jews used to call the pagans dogs, and ironically, it is precisely the pagans who are saved by the wounds of Christ.

Valley of pleasures – Valley of tears
Eventually death comes to both, and the second vignette is presented to us in the parable. Lazarus, who lived before in the “valley of tears”, is now living in the “valley of pleasures”, unlike the rich man who used to live in the “valley of pleasures”, now lives in the “valley of tears”. The situation is now reversed with the difference being that in the first account both the tears and the pleasures were temporary; “there are no evil that lasts forever nor are there good that endures forever”, but in the second vignette which represents the second part of our lives, both the pleasures and the tears are eternal.

There is a sense of finality in the way the death of the rich man is described; he died and was buried, as if to say that for him everything is finished. Hell is, therefore, the eternal death that is contrary to the eternal life. The few times that hell is depicted in the Bible as eternal suffering should be taken as a pedagogical way of instilling fear; this very same technique was used by the preachers of the past because we are more afraid of suffering than of death.

Like it happens almost every time, “death opens the eyes of the living”. In fact, the rich man who previously could not see Lazarus, now sees him perfectly. But he still remains self-centered; he did not see poor Lazarus then because the latter had nothing to do with him, but now he sees Lazarus because he needs him. Many of us see life and human relations like a grand buffet; we relate with others, not by what we can give them, but by what they can do to improve our lives.

The one who used to be clothed in fine linen is now clothed in flames; and it is in the midst of this that he remembers that he has a father and brothers and wants Lazarus to be sent back to save them. Abraham reminds him that they have the same means that he had to save themselves, i.e. the Law and the Prophets, which Jesus sums up as loving God above all things and loving neighbours as oneself.

The rich man thinks that if Lazarus is raised from the dead, his relatives would surely believe in him and change the way they live. Contrary to this belief, we know very well that when Jesus raised another Lazarus from the dead, his miracle, instead of making the Jews believe in him, it only led them to want all the more to kill both him and the recently raised Lazarus.

Faith continues to be the only gate to salvation, there will be no signs from the other world, and no miracle to prove beyond any doubt the truth of these things; by faith we live and in faith we are saved. There are no scientific proofs, and there never will be, that God exists and sustains the lives of the faithful here and now as He will sustain them after our death.

The poor who looms at our window
Last year Oxfam informed, at the World Economic Forum which took place from January 21 to 25, 2015, in Davos, Switzerland, that this year one percent of humanity will possess more wealth than the remaining ninety-nine. More specifically, the one percent will own 54% of the world wealth, and the ninety-nine percent of humanity the remaining 46%.

A reality that should make us think… After so much scientific and technological progress, humans have progressed very little in the area of humanity; the ever greater abyss between the rich and the poor proves unequivocally that what truly guides and inspires human behaviour is not intellect nor goodwill, as would have been desirable, but the egocentric and irrational instincts that we have in common with the animals.

Throughout the history of humanity, human intellect appears to have been more at the service of egoism than altruism; man’s creativity appears to be greater for evil than for good, this is the only way to explain so many realities like the holocaust of the Jews, and other genocides (abortion, war crimes and war itself…). We have to conclude sadly that the human race surpasses the animals, not only in its rationality but also in its irrationality.

In poor countries, there is still death from diseases for which cures have long been found like leprosy, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, and all illnesses related to lack of hygiene, drinking water and precarious diet… In rich countries, death comes from excessive consumption; in poor countries, death comes from lack of consumption of the essentials. Now if we were to share, neither the poor would die of poverty nor the rich of material excesses. We would all be healthier…

The laws or the system that make this inequality possible are simply unjust. The gap between the rich and the poor is forever increasing. Since the planet cannot sustain all its inhabitants living the way the western countries do, and since westerners would not lower their standards of living to allow the poor to raise theirs to a sustainable level, therefore in order not to put any more strain on the planet, some cynical economic and financial mechanisms have been put in place to keep the poor forever poor.

Again and again the world powers meet to discuss the climatic changes, which are signs that our planet is sick, and the sickness is caused by our abuse of its resources, but little has been accomplished. We all know what the consequences will be and yet we cannot halt the behaviours that are taking us inexorably to a collective suicide. A month ago, the city of Beijing put out a red alert for the first time, it closed all schools and public offices; the air was so polluted that besides being unbreathable, the visibility was also drastically reduced.

The fact that poverty is a global problem that is becoming more and more difficult to resolve as the gap between the rich and the poor keeps getting bigger must not prompt us to do nothing in face of this overwhelming odd. God is not going to ask us to account for all the poor in the world, but only for those who sit at our gate or cross our path.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The Good Samaritan

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.”

Which of these three, do you think, was neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:30-37)

Jesus’ second best known parable after the prodigal son is no doubt the parable of the Good Samaritan. Western culture was influenced so much by this parable that today the term "Samaritan", rather than referring to an inhabitant of Samaria, applies to any person who is caring and compassionate, and helps those who are in need.

How to inherit eternal life
This parable is inserted in the context of a dialogue that Jesus has with a lawyer who quizzed him on what one must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, like a good non-directive psychotherapist following the style of Carl Rogers, helps him to find for himself the answer to his own question by referring him to his reading of the Law. The lawyer says in response what Jesus wants to hear; that is, instead of mentioning the actual laws, he gives to love the status and importance of a law, guessing that is precisely what Jesus would have done.

The answer given by the doctor of the law is a synthesis of the Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, and he arrives at it by combining the love of God described in the Book of Deuteronomy (6:4-8) with the love of neighbour outlined in the Book of Leviticus (19:18).  Jesus applauds this association and simply exhorts him to put it into practice if he wants to enter into eternal life.

Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. (1 John 4: 20)

From this text we can conclude that the love of God that does not manifest itself in the love of neighbour, is not real nor genuine. On the other hand, we can only love our neighbour when we understand that what we do to others, we are doing it to God, and as the Gospel says, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt.25:40).

This ensues from the reality that the love of God is the primordial and the most important love, because it   is only when we see God as our Father that we see others as our brothers. If God is not the Father of all, then my neighbour is not my brother but rather my rival, my enemy, someone whom I envy or fear. Regardless of how well-off our biological siblings might be, we do not envy them. In this same way when I truly love God like a Father then every person who surrounds me, rich or poor, big or small, near or far, is my biological sibling since God being the Creator of all is the Father of all.

Christianization of grammar
Who is my neighbour? – Like the other lawyers who approached Jesus before, this one also does not come to affirm his teachings. The first question is only a preparation to his second one, in which he intends to denounce the fact that Jesus does not accept differences between people. Therefore, the second question assumes that there are people who can be considered as neighbours and others, on the contrary, not. And so it was with the Jews; they were God’s chosen people; therefore for them a neighbour was someone of the same tribe and religion; the rest were Gentiles or pagans, and as such were not included as their neighbours.

Distinction of persons does not exist for Jesus. This is the message he intends to convey with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In the middle of the Judean desert lies a wounded man; no one knows who he is since nothing is said about his identity. His face must have been badly battered since no one could tell his ethnicity from his facial features; he is probably half dead or unconscious and as he was unable to speak, no one could guess from his language, dialect or accent which tribe he came from. Similarly, one could not get any information from his clothing since he had been stripped of them.

Jesus does not give any details about the poor man’s origin because they are not important. The only thing that matters to Him is that he is a human being. Human dignity is not dictated by a person’s ethnicity, language, religion or politics, but simply by the fact of being a human person.

 God is the Father of all so that when we pray the ‘Our Father’, no one should be excluded from the pronoun “our”. In fact, if we took our faith to its logical conclusion, we would have to modify the grammar and abolish all personal pronouns except three: I + You = We.

Seeing myself as a free autonomous being, “I” am distinct from everything and everyone that surround me; then I look around and recognize an alter ego, a “You”, different from me, but of same dignity; finally, the fact that we need one another, on terms of equal rights and duties, a new entity comes about as a “We” that means a “You” and an “I” together; apart from these, the remaining pronouns we can discard since they are discriminating.

The pronouns “he”, “she”, “you” (in plural) and “they” establish irrelevant differences regarding the dignity of the human person. Making distinctions where they are not important is oftentimes a disguised form of discrimination. Once more, as we are Christians, the ‘our’ of ‘Our Father’ should encompass all people without distinction and discrimination.

Habitat on anatomy
Science tells us that human beings come from a common stock. With the Greek philosophy in mind, the dignity of a human person is to be linked to the essence and not to the accidents of life. What Jesus wants this lawyer to understand is that the differences in ethnicity, gender, social position, class, color of skin, type of hair etc., are accidents, that is, they are the vicissitudes of our existence and have nothing to do with the essence. The dignity of the human person refers to the essence and not to the accidents. Jesus tells this parable hoping that the lawyer, his interlocutor, by himself would arrive at the conclusion that the neighbour of each human person is every human person.

Born out of a common origin in the Rift Valley of Africa some five million years ago, the physiological characteristics that are evident in human beings today are due somewhat to the morphological and climatic conditions of their surroundings where they have inhabited for many thousands of years. For example, it is noted that the skin colour is proportional to the distance from the equator: the closer a person lives to the equator, the darker the skin: the Congolese are the darkest human beings on earth; the north Africans are much lighter than the Congolese while the southern Europeans are lighter than the north Africans and the northern Europeans are even lighter than the southern Europeans.

Just as the distance from the equator has shown correlation with the skin colour, so it seems to have something to do with the colour of the eyes and hair: in Northern Europe, blues eyes and blonde hair predominate, central Europe brown eyes and brown hair and southern Europe till the equator black eyes and black hair. The size of the nose seems to be related to air temperature as in addition to filtering the air, the nose also heats it, so that in cold countries people tend to have larger noses.

The temperature and the incidence of sun also seem to have something to do with whether the hair is curly or straight. The frizzy hair of the Africans forms an air box which allows air to circulate, in this way protecting the head from the sun’s ray and from the heat. Similarly, the Asian eyes are related to the extreme climate of the Asian steppes where it is very cold and bright during the winter, and very windy and dusty during the summer.

The French Revolution “avant la letter”
In the western culture it was the French Revolution that did away with birthrights, the nobility and its so called “blue bloods”, and came up with the ideals that have been the corner stone of democracy: we are all equal at birth and equal under the law. But long before we were equal under the law we were already equal under God.

If we look closely, we will note that the ideologies of the French Revolution were not really the discovery of the revolutionaries of those days, but were already implicit in the commandment to love God and neighbour.

Freedom – This is implicit in the commandment to love God above all things since it is only when we love God above all things and persons, that we have the proper order and hierarchy in our hearts to become truly free. For in paying homage to a Transcendent Being I too transcend and rise above all things that are not of God; it is then and only then that I am truly free.

Equality – This is implicit in the commandment to love a neighbour as I love myself; another person is an alter ego, or another ‘I’, from where the concept of altruism arose.  By being another ego or another ‘I’, this person is therefore not a stranger but someone of equal dignity, rights and duties. In the very same way that I love myself I should love anyone who is in front of me, not more not less; the measure of my self-esteem is the measure of my love for the other; other than this, there is no better affirmation of equality.

Fraternity – This word is derived from the Latin word ‘frater’ which means ‘brother’. One of the hallmarks of Christianity is the conviction that God is the Father of all, which makes us all His children and therefore siblings among us. For this reason, all that I do whether good or bad, I am doing it to a brother; furthermore, as Matthew (25:40) says, it is actually Christ, our elder brother, whom I am doing it to.

With the fairy tale of Cinderella and Prince Charming in mind, there is a proverb that states that love either springs up between equals i.e. people of the same social status, or makes people equals, that is, raises the partner of lower social status to the level of the higher one. We conclude then that fraternity and equality are one and the same thing. Consequently, we are left with the love of God as the way to attain freedom and the love of the neighbour as the way to attain equality, justice and peace. Freedom or love of God is the corner stone of individual human life, and equality or the love of our neighbour the corner stone of human social life. They are complementary since one cannot exist without the other.

This being said, social differences like the caste system in India should never be accepted let alone be practiced in any reasonable society. Similarly, it is also unacceptable that the Muslims consider infidels all those who do not worship their god and do not live according to the Sharia law.

Religion as opium?
We disagree, of course, with Karl Marx when he affirmed that religion is the opium of the people. Religion per se is not an opium, but in practice it can be. A religion that creates differences between people, that leads me to relate with others differently, is the opium for the people because it alienates me, alienates others and creates hatred and strife. A religion that sets me apart from others, dehumanizes, prevents me from helping others and seeks excuses for not doing so is an opium. A religion that does not teach me ways to get out of my comfort zone, from my egocentricity, is not a religion at all.

Religion comes from the Latin word “religare” which means relation, therefore a true religion is one that motivates the greatest number of possible relations that are based on love. Therefore, the priest and the Levite that bypassed the person in need of help to avoid being tainted so that they could practice their religion, that is, to offer temple sacrifices, found in religion an excuse for not helping; such a religion is indeed the opium of the people.

Any particular religion is turned into the opium when it becomes an ideology that justifies and rationalizes natural selfishness and inactivity, to the point of killing the compassion that surges up naturally when one is confronted with human suffering and even animal suffering. Such a religion is a superstructure, in the language of Karl Marx, which dehumanizes individuals.

The priest and the Levite, something similar to a priest and a deacon of our times, are by their nature pontiffs; that is, bridges between God and men. Their function is to intercede to God for their fellowmen; to take God to men and men to God. While going to the temple to intercede for abstract men and women, they passed by a flesh and bone man lying at their feet.

Compassion then comes from the one least expected, from a man of trade in whom one would normally expect to find greed and a pursuit of personal gain in all circumstances. Again mercy comes from the one for whom time is money and all activities had to be lucrative. Being a businessman, if anyone had “excuses” to pass by it was the Samaritan, and yet, it is precisely he who stops and puts aside his agenda and tends to the afflicted man.

Perhaps by not being religious, the natural feeling of compassion is not ideologically suppressed, and so compassion and mercy, attributes of God not seen in those two clerics, are found in this Samaritan instead.

The Samaritan does not only feel compassion but more importantly, he acts upon it; there are many who feel but do nothing about it. His compassion is what makes him set aside his itinerary and personal life and put them on hold. Not only does he give his time and his ride while he himself continues the journey on foot, but he also opens his purse and pays the innkeeper for all the expenses needed to look after the wounded man, even offering to pay for any unforeseen ones should the case arise. The Good Samaritan becomes an icon of God’s mercy, and an example that Jesus invites us to follow with this parable.

Mercy:  is the fundamental law that dwells in the heart of every person who looks sincerely into the eyes of his brothers and sisters on the path of life. Misericordiae Vultus by Pope Francis.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Lost & Found - The two sons

The parable of the prodigal son is probably the most renowned short story of all times. It is indeed a masterpiece and in some way the ex libris of the Gospel. Traditionally known as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”, it is also recognized as the parable of the two sons because the less commendable attitude of the elder son is also an integral part of the story; for this same reason some call him the less wicked of the two bad sons, and finally, by transferring the focus from the sons to the Father, there are also those who call it the parable of the Merciful Father.

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them.

Then Jesus said… - Jesus introduces this parable by linking it to the previous two, that of the lost sheep and the lost coin. The ones lost inside the house but still within the fold, that is, the coin, the 99 sheep and the elder son, all come to symbolize the Pharisees. The others lost outside the fold, that is, the one lost sheep and the prodigal son, both represent the publicans, the prostitutes and sinners in general. For Jesus, both groups are sinners in need of forgiveness, both are sick and in need of healing. In truth, as the Scripture says, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Christ died for all because all are sinners.

Father, give me the share of the property… - According to the Jewish law, a father could not dispose of his property as he wished. In this situation, the elder son had the right to two thirds and the younger son to one third of the property (Deut. 21:17). In this third parable, the drama is brought into focus. It no longer deals with the loss of a sheep, or a coin, and not even parts of a property; what concerns this father is the loss of his son.  In order to understand his affliction, let us recall Jacob’s anguish when he judged that he had lost Joseph, at that time his youngest and most favorite son by Rachel, the woman he loved at first sight and for whom he had to labour 14 years.

The tragedy of this father, implicit in the parable, is the ingratitude of his younger son. To ask for the inheritance before the death of his father, is like telling him: “For me you have already died and therefore the inheritance must be divided; what or who you are means nothing to me, only what you have; since I no longer want to live with you, I am not waiting around for you to die; I want now what already belongs to me!”

So he (the father) divided his property between them – Despite being profoundly offended by his son’s ingratitude, the father neither argues nor tries to convince him that what he intends to do is wrong. He knows all too well that life will teach his son with heartaches what he could not teach him with love; failures and sufferings are oftentimes the integral part of the learning process. In fact, we generally learn more from our mistakes than from our successes; in this sense, in good faith “there is no evil out of which good does not come".

In respecting the freedom of man, the Almighty God reveals his powerlessness. We can compel children to do what is good, but with adults, goodness must come from their own free choice. Alike God many parents have to stand by and watch in desperation as their children destroy their lives through vices or laziness without being able to do anything.

Women are nowhere to be found in this parable because women in those days did not own any properties nor could they inherit any; but we see one father with attitudes and traits that are traditionally more in tune with those of a mother from which we can say that the woman, meaning the female character, is also figuratively present in this parable.

A few days later (…) gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, (…) he began to be in need. (…) But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

He came to himself – It was necessary to fall deeply before he would come to himself and take responsibility for his situation; he had to suffer deep hunger pangs, and fall to the state of being a pig keeper, the most impure of all animals whose pods he could not even have to ease his hunger, before he became aware of his wrongdoings.

Deus intimior intimo meo est (St. Augustine) – God is beyond my inmost self so that the path to God is through my innermost being; therefore when we walk to God, we walk towards a greater awareness of ourselves. Similarly, when we return to God like the prodigal son did, we come back to ourselves; but while being outside of self, like the drug addicts and alcoholics, the prodigal son walks haggardly fleeing from God and from himself.

He does not embrace the reality of being a child of God, hence in some way, he goes back to his “animality”, to the time of evolution of species when human beings still primitive did not have the awareness of selves. While possessed by a passion or a vice, when we do evil we walk outside of ourselves and lose self-awareness, self-control, and identity.

I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’” So he set off and went to his father...

He decides to go back home not out of remorse but out of hunger... primum vivere deinde filosofare… by returning he still only has his own self-interest in mind; he goes back because he is hungry and needs more things; he does not go back because he misses his father, but rather in his father’s house even the servants are better off than him as a pig keeper. He is not worthy of being a son, as he says in his preparatory speech, nor does he appear interested in being a son.

The prodigal son wants to impose a penance on himself; he wants in some way to make restitution, to compensate for what he has done, but the father does not let him finish the speech that he had prepared beforehand and embraces him after hearing only part of his confession. God does not need our restitution nor our penance to forgive us; God forgives and forgets. But then, why purgatory? It is a necessity of our human nature and not that of God; because God forgives us more easily and more readily than we forgive ourselves.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

At a distance, it is not the son who first sees the father, but the father who sees the son whom he has been waiting for because he has never stopped waiting, never forgot him nor did he get on with his life, as people usually do. On the contrary, he never gave up on him but lived in the hope that he would return one day. When we move away from God, the place that we occupy in His heart is not taken up by someone else and so it remains always empty until we come back to Him if ever we do come back.

The son makes a small attempt to reconcile with his father, but it is the father who makes the biggest move towards reconciliation because he never gave the son up as hopelessly lost. So when the son eventually appears as a labourer, without any resentment and full of compassion the father receives him back as a son, embraces him, something that no boss does to a worker, kisses him like one kisses a beloved son, and treating him as an equal, he does not let his son kneel before him. He then places a signet ring on his son’s finger as the seal of power and dresses him in the better garment of a beloved son, like Jacob did for Joseph. Finally at the end he orders the fatted calf to be killed to celebrate and rejoice at his son’s return.

Now his elder son (…) heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” Then he became angry and refused to go in…

The son who transgressed learned a lesson; how often do we need to be deprived of things before we appreciate their worth. The younger son understands now what the love of the father is because he had denied it and had fled far from it. The elder son never comes to understand it. It is precisely in this sense that St. Augustine develops his theology of “Felix Culpa” referring to the fall of Adam, and Luther adds his paradox “pecca fortiter, sed crede fortius”, if one sins, sin greatly because only a great sin is cause for a great conversion. The “peccata minuta” of the elder son, however, is not enough to dissuade him from his sinful life.

‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”’ (Lk. 15:11-32)

The sin of the younger son is his rejection of his father’s paternity, and the sin of the elder son is the same; he also does not regard himself as a son but rather as a hired hand, perceiving his father as a righteous taskmaster whom he obeys not out of love but out of fear. Like the rich young man and the Pharisees who never transgressed a single commandment, and who only complied with the letter of the law because, as Jesus put it so well, their interiors were full of filth and so is the interior of the elder son as is clear by the way he describes his brother’s dissolute living. The elder son is, in some way, like those who only behave well before law enforcers and authority; the ones rightly depicted by the saying “when the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

If the elder son had been a true son, he would have shared his life and belongings with the father and behaved according to the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Furthermore, if he had been a true son, it would not have been necessary for him to ask for a young goat because he still had the inheritance that was due to those who are and behave like children of God (Matt. 25).

How the prodigal son spent his father’s money we do not find out from the narrator but from the elder son; throughout the text there is no mention of prostitutes until the elder son mentions them; this is the sort of accusation that a puritan mentality would make in order to ask for a harsher punishment. In the Church we have not yet gotten rid of that sort of moral theology that judges all sexual matters as serious and mortal sins but turns a blind eye to the sins of social justice.

Furthermore, if we psychoanalyze the emphasis the elder son gives to the way his brother spent the money, we come to the conclusion that after all the prodigal son only did what his elder brother always wanted and wished to do but never had the courage to do so. It is, therefore, a question of envy what the elder son feels for his brother.

Unlike the younger son who is genuine in his calling of ‘Father’, the elder son upon addressing the Father does not treat him as such. He also does not treat his brother as a brother referring to him only as “this son of yours”. When God is not the Father, then others are not brothers, but rather enemies or rivals towards whom we feel envy, resentment, and hatred. Many speak of the love of neighbour as being the most important thing and as the proof that we love God, but it is only when we love God that our neighbour is truly a neighbour and not a stranger or a rival.

A catechist after having told the parable of the prodigal son to a group of children asked them to recount it in their own words. One child retold the parable as such until the moment the prodigal son appeared on the horizon. Then he said that when the father saw the son he grabbed a club and began to run towards him.

On the way. he met his elder son who asked him where he was going, and the father told him that he was going to meet his brother. Upon hearing that his brother had returned, he too grabbed a club and they both went to meet the wretched prodigal son; after beating him with the clubs and discharging their anger for what he had done, they took a deep breath and looking at each other satisfied said, ‘Now let us feast, eat and drink to the health of this rascal!’

This child expressed what any father in this world would naturally have done, but this is not the way God is - for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are yours ways my ways, says the Lord (Isa. 55:8).

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

This year in Jerusalem

Last night while I slept
I dreamed that I was standing in front of the temple
in the old city of Jerusalem
There I heard the voices of children
who seemed to me like angels from heaven singing
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing
Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna to your King.

Music from Stephen Adams; Lyrics from Frederick E. Weatherly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85WZUMDk8E8

Just as Christmas ceased to be, for many, the celebration of the birth of Jesus, to be the feast of Santa Claus and the physical and affective warmth of family intimacy that contrasts with the cold and snow outside the house; In the same way, Easter has ceased to be the commemoration of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, but the feast of the egg and the bunny, which symbolize the rebirth of nature in spring after the long lethargy of winter.

We do not know for sure when Jesus of Nazareth was born or when he died. The placement of his birth on the winter solstice and his death and resurrection on the spring equinox was intentional; But the intention was not, as many think, to Christianize the pagan celebrations of these astronomical events and climate change.

The intention was clearly theological: Jesus was born as the days begin to grow, at the end and beginning of a new solar year, for He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all that exists. Just as our planet derives its life by revolving around the sun, so Jesus is for us the sun around which we revolve in order to obtain life.

On the other hand, Jesus died and rose again when the earth is reborn from the apparent death of winter; If autumn reminds us of old age and winter of death, spring, which, as the song says, always comes and goes, reminds us of the eternity we have conquered with the rebirth of Christ.

The prehistory of our Easter
The Passover Supper is a ritual meal, which every Jewish family celebrates, to commemorate the liberation of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. As the Book of Exodus (23:8) commands, during the meal the story of the people's departure from captivity must be recounted. At the end of this supper the diners declare in a joyful tone, "Next year in Jerusalem."  

Jerusalem has always been the object of the longing of the Jews of the Diaspora, expelled from their own homeland; their lament in the Babylonian captivity is well known: if I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be withered! Let my tongue be caught in my taste, if I do not remember you, if I do not make Jerusalem my supreme joy! (Psalm 137:5-6)

This phrase with which the Passover meal ends is seen by many as anachronistic; Israel being a modern state today, occupying more or less the same land it occupied in the time of King David; living today comfortably both the Jews of Israel and those of the Diaspora, it makes no sense to repeat this phrase.  and much less for the Jews who live in Jerusalem permanently, unless the phrase has a more eschatological meaning.

In this sense, for traditional Jews, it refers to the coming of the Messiah and the rebuilding of the temple; For liberal Jews who do not accept the idea of the Messiah, nor of a temple-based Judaism, the phrase can have numerous interpretations that have more to do with an ideal, utopian and even heavenly Jerusalem that is to come than with the Jerusalem where I now find myself.

Christ's Last Supper
Then he took the cup, gave thanks, and handed it to them. They all drank from it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for all. Assuredly, I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the day I drink it new in the kingdom of God." After the singing of the psalms, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Mark 14:24-25

Some say that Christ's Last Supper was modeled on the traditional Passover meal of the Jews, others opine that it is something new. As the Passover meal of the Jews commemorates the deliverance from slavery in Egypt, while that of Christ marks the moment of a greater deliverance, that of the whole human race, whatever the conclusion of the discussion may serve, serves our purpose.

Just as the Jews of all times say at the end of the Passover supper, "next year in Jerusalem" meaning the hope of a better world, as well as in the continuation of life in the heavenly Jerusalem, Jesus at the Last Supper with his disciples says:  "I will not drink of the fruit of the vine again until the day I drink it."  In the Kingdom of God, he affirms that this future is about to come and is fulfilled in himself.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem...
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! How many times have I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Now your house will be desolate. I tell you, you will not see me until the day comes when you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.' Luke 13:34-35

Until that utopian future arrives, the old city continues to be the scene of violence between Palestinians and Israelis. At this moment, as I write these, lines in the monastery of St. Anne where I am staying doing a Bible course for three months, near the lions' gate about 400 meters from here a Palestinian woman tries to stab an Israeli soldier, who seeing her life in danger shot her killing her.

A few hours later, near the Damascus gate, a Palestinian shot another soldier, wounding him; his colleagues chased the Palestinian, so he shot again and wounded another; Finally, the soldiers shot him, killing him. Also on the same day, two Palestinian youths fired on an Israeli bus; As they fled, they were stopped by traffic and even there in public, the soldiers fired at the car with bursts of machine gun fire, killing its occupants and injuring some people who happened to be there.

Heavily armed with machine guns, wearing a bulletproof vest, carrying backpacks full of ammunition, Israeli soldiers do not wear handcuffs as they never take prisoners; They always shoot and kill every Palestinian who makes an attempt on the life of a Jew, then they destroy his house and deport the whole family.

Jerusalem is divided into 4 blocks: the Muslim, the Jewish, the Armenian Christian and the Arab or Palestinian Christian, because the three religions of the book have it as a holy city. For Judaism it is holy because it is built around the Temple, the center of the Jewish faith. For Christians, because Jesus visited her many times as the good Jew that he was, he died in her and rose again.

For Muslims, it is holy because they claim that the Prophet Mohammed travelled from Mecca to Medina and from Medina to Jerusalem in one night, from where he ascended to heaven, more precisely in the Temple in the Holy of Holies, where the Mosque of the Rock stands today; consequently, for Muslims Jerusalem is the third holy city after Mecca and Medina, for this reason it was invaded shortly after the death of the prophet.

Against the ascension to heaven of Mohammed in the image and likeness of Jesus, the historical fact of Muhammad's death, probably by poisoning, and his tomb in the green mosque of Medina speaks. To give more strength to the legend of the prophet's ascension to heaven, Saudi Arabia, against the advice of many Muslims, currently wants to destroy the mosque and the tomb, exhuming the body of the prophet, burying it in an anonymous grave.

Unfortunately, for those who today demand total control over Jerusalem, this visit can only have been a dream, as much as it pains them to admit that there is no evidence or proof that Muhammad traveled in the flesh to Jerusalem, as there were no supersonic planes at that time.

What the Muslims claim as historical fact, the prophet himself claims to have been a dream whose historical context was to convince the most skeptical that he belonged to the lineage of the prophets of Judaism, Abraham, Moses, Jesus. Still in relation to this visit to Jerusalem, Aicha Mahammad, Muhammad's favorite wife, later insisted that it was never a real trip, but a spiritual experience.

The connection of the Muslim faith to the city of Jerusalem is extremely tenuous when compared to that of Judaism and Christianity. The real reason why Muslims claim Jerusalem as a holy city for them is because Judaism and Christianity, which they have always wanted to supplant at all costs, declare it holy before.

Throughout the year in the streets of Jerusalem we observe Jewish and Christian pilgrims from all over the world; the only Muslims we see are those who live here; In fact, the city is formatted for this type of pilgrims, everywhere you can see Jewish and Christian souvenir shops and none for Muslims; the lack of Muslim pilgrims alone is overwhelming proof that this city is not important to them, and many of them do not even believe that Muhammad was ever here.

Since the Muslim religion is a mixture of Judaism and Christianity, adapted to the Bedouin culture, from Mohammed to the present day they look at these religions with a certain envy and grow up with the mentality of "us too", if the others are we are too, if the others have we also have it. The invasion of Jerusalem is no different from the invasion and extermination of Christianity throughout North Africa and Turkey; and in Europe from the Iberian Peninsula to Posters, in France, where it was stopped.

Already possessing two holy cities, by declaring Jerusalem the third, settling on the hill of the temple, the heart of the Jewish faith, they left the Jews without a holy place, with only the western wall of the temple, in front of which they still pray and lament wounded in their faith and nationalism as one who has a thorn buried in the flesh.

Today a forbidden place for Jews, the Temple Esplanade, is occupied by two mosques: the Al Aksa Mosque or the Silver Dome Mosque, and the Rock Mosque or the Golden Dome Mosque, built on the Holy of Holies of Solomon's Temple, the rock being the place where Abraham was going to sacrifice his son Isaac. The golden dome can be seen from any angle of the city and its surroundings for what is today, anachronistically, the ex libris of Jerusalem.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine is fundamentally a political rather than a religious conflict; religion, however, is invoked and instrumentalized by both parties as an excuse to avoid making concessions, because what is sent by God is not discussed or questioned or abdicated.

A bridge is not built in the middle, but by the banks it intends to join. On Israel's side, it is essential that they recognize the right of Palestine to a homeland, as they had and the world gave them. On the Muslim side, it is important that you recognize that much of your behavior is governed by myths, legends, and beliefs that defy reason, so it is important that you purify your faith of everything that is in direct collision with science and even common sense.

This year in Jerusalem
On this mountain, (referring to Mount Zion Jerusalem) the Lord of the worlds will prepare for all peoples a banquet of succulent delicacies, a banquet of delicious wines. (…) he will take away the veil that covered all peoples, the cloth that shrouded all nations; He will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and will wipe out the reproach that weighs on his people from the whole earth. Isaiah 25:6-8

As a missionary, over 30 years of ministry, I have celebrated Easter in different countries and locations. Inspired by the traditional phrase of rejoicing, which the Jews exclaim at the end of every Passover meal, I feel like saying with equal joy and with the same hope: This year in Jerusalem! This is the fourth time that I have come here, and I hope that it will not be the last time that I will set foot on the land that the Redeemer trod, but it is the first time that I celebrate the Lord's Passover where it took place 2000 years ago.

Jerusalem means a city of peace, and yet, anachronistically, today divided into four antagonistic peoples who continually fight each other, it is difficult to find a place that has been the scene of so many wars. Let us pray that one day Jerusalem will live up to its name and fulfill Isaiah's prophecy of a banquet of delicious delicacies and rich wines. 

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Lost & Found - One Sheep and one Coin

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.” (Lk. 15:4-6)

The lost sheep
Jackals, hyenas and wolves are the sworn enemies of sheep. For the most part animals kill out of necessity, but wolves, however, are not content to just kill a sheep and eat it in peace. On the contrary, their aim is to slaughter the entire flock and not relent as long as there is a sheep still left standing; it seems that they take great pleasure in killing.

When I was a child and a shepherd, I used to take my small flock far away from the village to the mountains; there, in unchartered territory, to prove how indispensable I was to the sheep, I used to play a sort of hide and seek game with them -- I would hide from the sheep and watch their reaction. So long as I was in their sight the sheep would eat in peace keeping one eye on the grass and the other on the shepherd, but once they lost sight of the shepherd, the bell around their neck would immediately go silent as they would stop eating. Then, after raising their heads and looking in all directions and not seeing the shepherd, they would disband and break into a mad dash towards the direction of home. I would then come out from my hiding place, give a loud whistle and they would return and graze again in peace.

Keeping this in mind, if a shepherd was taking care of a flock by himself, it is truly inconceivable that he would leave the flock, placing the 99 sheep in danger, to look for the one lost. He would at the very least first ensure the safety of the 99 and only then go look for the lost one.

This shepherd is special, however, for he uses an unusual type of mathematics: for him, 99 is equivalent to 1, and 1 is equal to 99. God does not have the same priorities that we humans have; the 99 were left behind for the single one. When a mother of nine who lost one of her children was told as a way of consolation that she should not cry as she still had eight left, she promptly responded, “I know I still have eight left, but I do not have the one I’ve just lost”.

The place where we occupy in God’s heart cannot be occupied by anyone else and in this fact that we are all unique to God resides the dignity of the human person. Therefore when someone is lost, God awaits patiently for his return and eventually when he does come back, as we see in the parable of the prodigal son, he is given the very same status that he had before he went away. Upon his return, he once again occupies the place in the Father’s heart that belongs to him alone which had been left empty since he went astray.

According to our ways of thinking, however, the 99 have every reason to be resentful, and we see this very sort of resentment being acted out by the older son in the prodigal son’s parable. One can only imagine that if the 99 sheep had a say, they would voice out their resentment towards the lost sheep by saying that no one had thrown him out of the flock but he had chosen of his own accord to leave the sheepfold and therefore must now suffer the consequences of his actions.

To top it off, when the shepherd finally finds the lost sheep, he does not drag it home kicking and screaming, but rather lays it on his shoulders, and not only gives a great feast but has the audacity to say that ‘there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous who need no repentance‘(Lk. 15:7).

Ministry or Evangelization?
Unlike this Divine Shepherd, the Church tends to pay little attention to the lost sheep, saying that we still have the 99 to take care. To look after these 99, a multitude of ministries came about:  campus ministries, youth ministries, ministries to the sick and homebound, etc.

According to statistics, however, time has reversed the parable; now only one remains in the flock while the other 99 are lost. This change in reality should have triggered a change in the pastors’ attitude and yet they remain as passive as they were before, now devoting themselves to fattening up the one and only sheep in the fold, and probably consoling themselves by saying that they still have one left…

Since we have only one sheep left in the sheepfold, are we not deceiving ourselves with the use or abuse of the word ‘ministry’? When we talk about campus ministries or health ministries, is it not a great assumption on our part to consider the thousands of students in a university or the hundreds of patients in a hospital as part of our flock?

If we were to use the word ‘mission’ in lieu of ‘ministry’ we would do more justice to the reality; we would then be more honest with ourselves and perhaps by confronting this harsh reality head on we would change our passive attitude of a shepherd to the proactive one of ‘fisher of men’, which Jesus wanted so much for us to be.

Mercy & Mission
‘For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus.’ (Rom. 15:4-5)

In this sense, we can relate to mercy as a form of Mission and Mission as a work of mercy. It is precisely this message that is depicted in the logo of the Jubilee Year of Mercy proclaimed by Pope Francis. To go in search of the lost sheep is at the same time a work of mercy and the mission of the new evangelization. In fact, in the logo, the guise of the lost sheep upon the shoulders of the Good Shepherd comes not in the form of a sheep but rather of a human being, that is, the prodigal son.

Not having a better consolation than to live out the Gospel which cherishes us, let us be its witnesses to others so that they too can experience the same consolation that we do, and be missionaries in the same sense as Isaiah who says, ‘Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.’ (Isa. 40:1)

The lost coin
‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbours, saying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.“ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’ (Lk. 15:8-10)

We would not be outraged at Jesus’ attitude towards the 99 if we thought that for him the 99 were as lost as the one; the difference is that both the lost sheep and the prodigal son were lost outside the fold; whereas the coin, the older brother, and the 99 sheep that never left the house or the sheepfold, were nonetheless also lost, divorced from God and from their own selves.

A silver coin was a day’s wage in those days and therefore, it was much that was lost. The woman swept the house in the hope of finding it, and in finding it she celebrated just as God celebrates for each one of us who is found.

Those who go to church are the worst
It is true that this grumbling has served many as a poor excuse for not going to Church and participating in the sacraments, and yet still considering themselves as Christians though non-practicing ones. However, the bad examples that the practicing Christians give, in the paths of life, make this statement unfortunately quite often true; in many churchgoers there is little evidence that their participation in the Church liturgies and sacraments has had any positive impact on their lives.

So it would be helpful if we could create some sort of mechanism by which Christians can make an examination of conscience as to the real reasons why they participate in the sacraments. They need to verify the place that religious practice occupies in their lives and to check if it is the engine of a new life of continuous conversion and progress, or if on the contrary, it alienates and justifies a certain manner of living or the general state of things i.e. modus vivendi or status quo…

When I lived in Ethiopia I saw how ignorance killed many people stricken with tuberculosis. The Ethiopian patients after taking the antibiotic Streptomycin for only two months would consider themselves cured and discontinue the treatment. We well knew that they were not completely cured and that when the illness returned, it would be caused by the much more virulent and drug-resistant strain of the bacteria from which many died.

Consequently, the World Health Organization alerted to the misuse of antibiotics for small inconveniences because this abuse rendered important antibiotics ineffective as the bacteria acquired resistance to the drugs. Similarly, this also happens at the ecclesial level, the sacraments are like the authentic antibiotics that kill harmful bacteria or in this case, the tendency to sin; but when they are abused, or they become a routine, they too cease to bear any fruit.

The same can be said of the Word of God which the practicing Christians hear often but not with a right state of mind, hence it runs the risk of sounding ‘déjà vu’ as these Christians become so accustomed to it like a body that becomes so used to an antibiotic, that the Word no longer exposes and kills the harmful germ of sin that it would normally be able to quash.

Furthermore, using the metaphor of the parable of the sower, if the Word of God sounds déjà vu, it means it no longer penetrates into our hearts since we are as hard as the soil on the pathway where the seeds are eaten up by the birds before they had the chance to penetrate into the soil and germinate (Matt. 13: 4). This is what happens to the Word of God that is proclaimed to a wandering mind, a mind that does not pay attention.

At the end of this reflection, and examining the message behind both the parable of the lost sheep and of the lost coin, we reach the conclusion that the 99 sheep were not any less lost than the one that drifted away. In the Lord’s sheepfold, not all that stay in it belong to it, and similarly not all that belong to it are in it.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC