Christmas to Epiphany VII: Pazienza de Dio (The Patience of God)

The Road (Oh, Hell!) of Good Intentions

On this sixth day of Christmas, we continue to reflect on Fr. Alfred Delp’s question, what difference it makes in our lives that Christ is born.

It’s New Year’s Eve morning as I write.  Tonight my wife and I will go to the traditional New Year’s Eve party at the home of some friends.  Having already eaten too much over Christmas, we will eat too much more.  There will be those among the large gathering, I suspect, who will drink too much, too.  But this excess is very, very good, because it takes us right down the entrance ramp to the American tradition of New Year’s Resolutions.  It’s an enormous highway, a dozen lanes filled bumper-to-bumper…for a few days.  Traffic thins out pretty quickly, and pretty soon lanes merge and then merge again and by the end of the year, the road to good intentions has narrowed to a lightly traveled footpath.

Pazienza di Dio,

vicinanza di Dio,

tenerezza di Dio.

The patience of God,

the closeness of God,

the tenderness of God.

As mentioned in yesterday’s posting, Pope Francis gave us a tricycle to ride, stable and certain transportation.  And how perfect that the first of the three characteristics to which he called us this Christmas season is patience.  It is good, as well, that he calls us not merely to patience, but to the patience of God. 

Our own patience is inadequate.  At an Alanon meeting a few years ago, someone shared a maxim that has stuck with me: expectations are premeditated resentments.  He was speaking of our expectations of others, but I believe that the statement is equally true of our expectations of ourselves.  Remember Francis’s essential premise, that the central meaning of Christmas is not our call to love God, but to accept our smallness and let God love us!

Yesterday morning I had coffee with two close friends, and our conversation began with a query about…New Year’s Resolutions.  A blessing of our threesome is our spectrum of preference and style on many things, even as we share the same values.  The spectrum shown in a rainbow draws us to look at something ordinary – light – opened to expose for a moment its mystery and beauty.  Here are some statements that opened us to a colorful and stimulating conversation about intentions and hopes. As we respect and appreciate each other, we spent some time looking at New Year’s Resolutions from each other’s perspectives.

What do I stand for every day?  What do I stand for any day?  One was inclined to desire consistency and continuity in his life, persistently caring about certain issues or values.  The other was inclined to wake up each day and be present to the specific experiences or awarenesses that emerged that day.  Mission and Mindfulness.

Don’t “should” on me.  I’ve already should on myself.  He might as well have said “’should’ is shit!”  For years I’ve tried to discourage my wife from saying we should do something when what she means is that she’d enjoy us doing something.  But “we should” and “we’ve got to” remains a common phrase.  But when my friend shared this phrase, I realized that the reason that I’m so sensitive to my wife (or anyone else) putting a demand on me is that I’ve already put too many demands on myself.

More – Enough: In our threesome, one of us was quite inclined (driven?) to want to do more, while another was quite content with the desire to reflect on the sense that he has, is, and does enough. 

And this last statement calls me to close.  Among Jesuit-formed people, a name for God is “Magis” – the more. This Jesuit-formed Pope and our Jesuit-formed martyr Fr. Delp call us to know that it is God who is enough.  It is God who calls us to “Basta” – Enough!  We are not called to be Magis; that’s God’s work.  We are called to allow God to love us, and that, sweet Jesus, is enough!

I believe that God calls me not to the ten-lane expressway of New Year’s Resolutions but to walk with Him on the narrow daily path, to experience God’s patient love. 

Should I resolve to take God up on that?  It would, I’m certain, be enough.

Tomorrow – the closeness of God

 FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Christmas to Epiphany VI: Becoming the Words

Before watching Pope Francis celebrate Midnight Mass, there were two times when I recall understanding a foreign speaker without knowing his language.  Francis was the third.

Pazienza di Dio,

vicinanza di Dio,

tenerezza di Dio.

On this sixth day of Christmas, we continue to reflect on Fr. Alfred Delp’s question, what difference it makes in our lives that Christ is born.

  

The first was an Italian, like Francis.  Velio was describing to us the work in his alabaster studio in Volterra, where our students spent their summer.  His whole body spoke, and his old eyes gave off a light that made his words clear.  

He became his words, and to see him was to know what he was saying.  

The second was a priest, like Francis.  In a side chapel that provided intimacy in the cavernous Frankfurt Cathedral, the celebrant’s homily was about the Good Shepherd. 

He became his words, and to see him was to know what he was saying. 

“The Word of God”; that is what John calls Jesus in the first chapter of his Gospel.  There was a point at which Francis illuminated that name without speaking it.  Francis read from his text with bodily gesture and eye contact, tempo and inflection, making the words come to life.  But at one point his eyes paused on the congregation, and he looked intently at them, breaking the cadence of his presentation.  And his words that were born in that silent pause “became flesh.”

Pazienza di Dio,

vicinanza di Dio,

tenerezza di Dio.

The patience of God,

the closeness of God,

the tenderness of God.

Francis became the words – patient, close, and tender with us. 

He became his words, and to see him was to know what he was saying.  

What difference did it make to Pope Francis that Jesus was born?  He was changed by the experience enough to become the words of truth that emerged from his soul, filled to overflowing with awareness of God.

Incarnation.  Words becoming flesh.  Velio, the German priest, and Francis call me to the almost irresistible beauty of this incarnation.  Almost.  I will need a lot of grace to pull it off myself, to be the words I’m given, to change into God’s patience, and closeness, and tenderness.

Over the next three days we’ll spend time reflecting and praying with those three words.

Meanwhile, here is a link to Francis’s Midnight Mass homily…inEnglish.

 FreeLemonadeStand by John J. Daniels is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.