THE FACE AND THE HEART OF JESUS

 Here is a talk I gave this morning to parish ministers from Saint Joseph Parish in Charlton nohow to be the face and the heart of Jesus to others.

When my grandmother was born at the end of the 19th century, there were two very popular devotions in the city of Worcester. They crossed, ethnic lines, and images of each were in almost every tenement. The first was the image of the Sacred Heart and the second the image of the Holy Face.

Indeed, my mother, of pure Irish stock, was nonetheless given a French first name, “Marguerite,” because of the widespread devotion to Sister Marguerite Bourgeois, whose visions of the Sacred Heart, where the impetus for the first of these new devotions. 

And then there was the devotion to the Holy Face, which started in Italy, growing up around the relic of Veronica‘s veil venerated in the third pier of Saint Peter‘s Basilica. Pius IX, besieged by Garibaldi‘s troops, had reproductions of the veil printed and sent to bishops and their flocks throughout the world so that they could intercede before the Holy Face for the preservation of the Holy See.

But beneath these exigencies, I suspect that the real reason for a popular embrace of devotions to the Sacred Heart and Holy Face of Jesus was the deep desire to know the Lord personally at a time when the industrialization of western economies was turning Mrs. McGillicuddy, the Lacemaker to that lady on the fourth loom who had a bad back and nonetheless sat on a hard wooden bench with shuttle and spindle for 56 hours a week.

It was the great era of the depersonalization of the individual and each and every Catholic longed to be seen and loved as a person, and to see the face and feel the personal love of the Lord, who was at the center of their life.

From the beginning of time, of course, we have all longed to see the Lord. Perhaps more than anything else perhaps more than any desire that stirred the human heart: to see the Lord and to know his love is at the heart of this journey which we call religion.

One of the major themes of the Bible is a desire to se the face of God. Indeed, the Hebrew word pānîm, which means “face”, is used over a hundred times in the Old Testament to speak of looking for the face of God. 

Why did they keep looking for God’s face?  Because only a person has a face, a living being, one who is loving and capable of being loved. And the desire to see God’s face is the desire to gaze on him with love, and to be looked upon by one who loves me. God, then, is not an abstraction or a divine mechanic who has withdrawn into the heavens and coldly looks down on us from above. No, God is love, and by dwelling in the light of his face….face-to-face with God, who enter into the deepest loving relationship of our little lives.

God then, listens to us, speaks to us, sees us and makes promises to us.  He loves and he teaches us the meaning of life and of love. The history of our relationship with God, then, is the history of our gazing at his face and his face looking back on us in love.

The Book of Numbers has that wonderful old patriarchal blessing, which we still use as a blessing on New Year’s Day:

“May the Lord Bless you and keep you. 

May the Lord make his face shine on you, 

and be gracious to you. 

May the Lord uncover his face to you and bring you peace.

Indeed, it is only by looking into God’s eyes that we can see ourselves for who we are and who were meant to be. As our beloved Pope emeritus once said, “The splendor of the divine face is the source of life, it is what makes it possible to see reality; the light of his face is guidance for life.”

Moses understood that well. Which is why we read in the Book of Exodus that “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11). But even this face to face friendship was but a show of what there was to come.  For in Jesus, we see the face of God made flesh. 

In Jesus, God’s face can be seen. The great English mystic, Caryll Houselander once described what the Blessed Virgin Mary must have felt like when she looked into the face of the child in her arms and saw in it the face of God.

Maybe that’s why artists down through the centuries have worked to hard to depict the face of Jesus, for in that face we see God, “the mediator and the sum total of Revelation” 

As he said to Philip, ‘whoever sees him, sees the Father’ Indeed, “in him we see and encounter the Father; in him we can call upon God with the name of “Abba, Father”; in him we are given salvation.”

But there is something more to seeing God’s face in the face of Jesus, for he tells us that he is also present in the poor, the weak and the suffering.

Caryll Houselander, once again, once wrote: “I see the face of God in everyone I pass. Sometimes it’s hard but I try.”  She once described sitting on a train and looking at everyone around her. Then, all of a sudden it occurred to her:

“Quite suddenly I saw with my mind, but vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them — but because He was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here too…all those people who had lived in the past and all those yet to come.”

So, the face of Christ is not just a two dimensional icon to be gazed upon up near the altar, bur the face of the tired cashier, in which see the suffering Christ, tired and worn out from all the sufferings he endured.  It is the face of the garbage collector, tired and hot and thirsty on the Cross. It is the face of the homeless man, Christ in the desert with nothing to eat or drink and nowhere to lay His head.

That's why we meditate on the face of the suffering Christ.

It is the face once transfigured in glory, 

and now crowned with a web of thorns.

It is the face weeping before the tomb of his friend Lazarus,

the face which wept over Jerusalem,

and covered with the sweat of blood on the Mount of Olives.

It is the face covered with a veil of shame 

and profaned by the soldiers,

now bowed upon the Cross for our salvation.

It is the face washed and anointed by the holy women

and resplendent with glory on the day of the Resurrection.

It is the face of Jesus, hidden in the Eucharist

and worthy of all devotion.

It is the face which we will see on the day:

the face of the merciful and just judge,

terror of sinners and hope of the just.

It is the face for whom we long,

in whom we hope,

the face of love,

who will come to save us.

—

As Parish ministers, as evangelists and as disciples of the risen, Lord, we are called to be the face of Jesus to the world. For it is not our brilliant words or our strategic plans which will convert the world to Christ. Strategic plans and brilliant words are political instruments and we are most assuredly not politicians.

Rather, we must respond to the deepest longings of the human heart, which is to see God. 

Now, admittedly, the best parts of ourselves is but a blurred reflection of the light of Christ’s face. It becomes less blurred, and in shaper focus when we love like him and we forgive like him, when our love is characterized by patient endurance, and by the willingness to lay down our lives for others. 

When the lady calls for a mass card on a Tuesday morning at the same time you’re trying to get the bulletin out, she is not looking to speak to the most efficient parish administrator in the Diocese of Worcester. She is, whether she knows it or not, longing to see the face of Christ. 

When the couple come in to have their newborn baby baptized, (even when the hardest part of it for them was figuring out where the church was located), they are not just looking for a way to satisfy their parents, but, whether they know it or not, they are looking for the face of Christ. 

And when that young person, overwhelmed by all of what it means to be sixteen, comes to play basketball in the gym, he is looking, whether he knows it or not for the face of Christ.

And when that old man walks away with two canned goods and a bag of rice, he is not just looking for a way to stretch a too small social security check, but whether he knows it or not, he is looking for the face of Christ.

And so your work, no matter what it says on the job description, is to be the face of Christ and to love with his Sacred Heart. That is the ministry of which we are each ever unworthy, but to which we are constantly called.

For the spirit will transform the face of the Earth, not by our most efficient or well laid plans, which often go awry, but by our willingness to decrease, so that Christ might increase and the people of Charlton might meet him in the breaking of the bread and in compassion of the face and the heart of Christ, in each one of you each day. 

Thank you.

Love, Saint Valentine and the Beatitudes

Did you remember Valentine’s day yesterday?  

I’m sorry if I brought up a sore subject and the person sitting next to you in elbowing you in the ribs!

Anyways, there are a couple of reasons why Saint Valentine, a third century martyr became the patron saint of lovers. First, because he was martyred when they caught him illegally marrying Roman soldiers to their betrothed before they went off to war; And second because medieval folks believed that this was the time of year when birds choose their mates. Either way, its was very good news for the florists!

But as a wise man once said, it is also sad that we need to be reminded to tell those whom we love that we love them. Not just for their sake but for ours as well..for the only way to true happiness is to love.

It’s like the friend of mine, whose wife said recently, “You never tell me that you love me.” “Of course I do,” he replied. “I told you 26 years ago, if anything changes I’ll let you know.”

Of course it’s a shame that so often we equate love with sex, in the same way that our consumer culture looks for instant gratification. But while sexual expression within marriage is a wonderful gift from God (which, after all, brought each one of us into being), it is not, in and of itself, love. 

For the depth of love is found in the realization that “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast…it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs… rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” It hangs in there.

Love is not instant gratification. Love is that intimacy that is born of a lifetime of sacrifice and caring, of mercy and patient endurance.

It is the kind of love which in every moment and throughout the years gradually transforms us into the image of what God made us to be, so that ever-so-slowly we come to look like the God who made us.

Think of the newly minted bride and groom, flush with the passionate flames of attraction and beauty. They are convinced that no one has ever know such love.

But then think of then forty years later, after they have come to know even each other’s weaknesses and even the darknesses that hide in every human heart. All those times they needed to forgive each other. All those times they needed hope in each other, even when things looked pretty hopeless. All those times when life disappointed them and they were afraid and cried. 

These were the blessed moments when they were poor and hungry, weeping and insulted. But blessed they were, because because in spite of it all and because of it all they still loved like God!

One of my favorite blogs is called whenicometobeold.com and I will close with a recent and wise posting by its author:

“So watch your romantic comedies, drool over white brides and roses, fixate on Romeo and Juliet.  But I know where the real romance is taking place, where “till death do us part” means something tangible, where “devoted” is a verb and not an adjective.”

Ars Celebrandi and the Priests of Wilmington

I just finished a delightful three days with the priest of Wilmington addressing the topic “The Ars Celebrandi of the Diocesan Priest.” Here are links to my presentation materials.

SLIDES

SCRIPTS

On Joy

“The sense of the joy in anything is the sense of Christ.” 

(Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God)

Is there anything sadder than a miserable Catholic? You know the type, and if you don’t, you can find plenty of them on Youtube or Instagram.

They are ones who are convinced that the world is going to hell in a hand basket, that everything is getting worse by the minute and that God is calling them to condemn all that is wrong with everyone else and be miserable about it in the process.

I’m afraid that Baruch won’t make them any happier this morning, because the prophet’s message is directed at them (and us):

“Take off your robe of mourning and misery,” he tells declares, and rejoice that God has remembered you. The God., who will level every mountain for you, and full in every valley, so that you can walk a straight path, the you might walk with joy, in the light of his glory.

Each of us are susceptible to the “perennial pity party.”  Poor me!  No one suffers like I do!  No one is more persecuted, alone or afraid.  There are even Psalms like that. I like to call them the “pity party Psalms.” Like Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

…so far from my call for help, from my cries of anguish?

My God, I call by day, but you do not answer;

by night, but I have no relief.

Dogs surround me; a pack of evildoers closes in on me.

They have pierced my hands and my feet

I can count all my bones. They stare at me and gloat.

Sounds like the Psalmist could use a good dose of Prozac. Or perhaps what he needs is to meet Jesus. Perhaps he needs to remember the three comings of Christ which we celebrate this time of year: his coming in the manger, his coming in glory at the end of time, and his coming into our hearts.

For better than Prozac is the presence of the Christ in our hearts. The one who has known and loved us since before we were born and the Jesus who was joy incarnate, 

whose birth was announced as good news of great joy, and who tell us to Rejoice and be glad! Rejoice and leap for joy! For I have come in order that my joy might be in you, and your joy might be complete.

So, the next time you feel the world weighing down on your shoulders and the darkness closing in, go to a quiet place, take out a little broom and clear away a little corner of your weeping heart. And then take a breath and invite him to rest in you, like a baby in a manger.

‘Cause if you do, you will know joy.