Show My Weakness

Show My Weakness

Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, Religious

If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 2 COR 11:30

"The lamp of the body is the eye. If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness. And if the light in you is darkness, how great will the darkness be."  Matthew 6:22-23

Piety

A Prayer to the Blessed Trinity by Daniel Berrigan

I'm locked into the sins of General Motors

My guts are in revolt at the culinary equivocations of General Foods

Hang over me like an evil shekinah, the missiles of General Electric.

Now we shall go from the Generals to the Particulars.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost

Let me shake your right hands in the above-mentioned order

Unmoved Motor, Food for Thought, Electric One.

I like you better than your earthly idols.

You seem honest and clear-minded and reasonably resolved

To make good on your promise.

Please: owe it to yourselves not less than to us,

Warn your people: beware of adulterations.

(From Daniel Berrigan, And the Risen Bread; Selected Poems, 1957–1997)

Study

In photography, there are many choices of lenses to put on the front of my camera.  First, the normal lens takes pictures that seem close to the angle of what we see with our own two eyes. Then, there are wide-angle lenses that see much more than we can with one glance.  Finally, there are telephoto lenses which see a narrower view but also make the scene appear to be much closer than where we are standing.

Christianity, culture, and politics are like different lenses on the world. Politics allows us to see the power. Culture allows us to see the popular.  Christianity allows us to see the weak and rejected.   

Rev. Daniel Berrigan, SJ

This is illustrated in both of today’s readings. After recalling his mission, Paul boasts about his weaknesses.  Usually, people might boast about their new job.  Their new house.  How well their children are doing in school or in careers.  Weakness is usually not a subject for typical boasting in culture or in politics.  After confessing to his weakness, he takes on weakness as a source of pride.

Jesus also reiterates that we must see life through a different lens.   In this context the parable of the light of the eye reinforces the need for us get enlightenment from Jesus’ teaching on the transitory nature of earthly riches, not from those who would have us store up treasures in our Lexus or Mercedes-Benz.

Action

Our heroes help us see life through different lenses.  Who becomes our heroes in life? Culture may tell us to follow Jay-Z, or Lebron, or Tom Brady.  Politics may tell us to follow the president, or the governor, or the mayor or the generals and admirals.  Religion holds up different examples. 

Recently, Villanova University had a conference on the life of Rev. Daniel Berrigan, SJ.  Fr. Berrigan had neither riches nor political power.  Yet, he profoundly influenced the spirituality of the people at the conference who talked about how he influenced their lives. One speaker noted:

"I have known many people who lived what one might call Jesus-shaped lives, Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton among them. Dan was another," he said. "Such people remind those who encounter them of the Gospels. These are people who, in ways large and small, lay down their lives for their neighbor, including the hostile neighbor, the enemy. One can make no sense of the pivotal choices Dan made in his long life apart from the New Testament."

He continued, "His greatest gift may have been the path he opened (or in many cases re-opened) to eucharistic life and faith for people who had been estranged from almost everything."

Perhaps the biggest takeaway we can have from Christianity and Cursillo is that you can't simply sit on the sidelines.  Christianity is simply not a spectator sport.  People like Dan Berrigan and St. Paul lived their weakness giving everything for their cause.  What do they inspire you to do?

PS: Happy Summer-Solstice Birthday to @MelanieRigney