Today, let’s meditate on two encouraging truths. First, whenever we’re going through anything difficult, God gives enough grace to get through it. Sometimes we think, ‘I can’t do it,’ and the devil wants us to think we can’t do it, but the Holy Spirit says, ‘You can, with My help.’
St. Ignatius says in his seventh rule for the discernment of spirits that we can resist temptation though we don’t feel it. This is important because sometimes we expect God’s grace to make us feel something (I come to Mass and ask Jesus for help but don’t feel anything). That’s not how grace works. Grace is sometimes like bland food: There’s no taste, but lots of nourishment.
Today, St. Paul writes, “If there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, then make my joy complete” (Phil 2:1-2). He’s writing to the Christians at Philippi, whose Church was founded around the year 50 A.D. Now, about 10 years later, he’s writing from prison and encouraging them to be united to Christ even more. One estimate says there were about 150-300 Christians, most of them poor, in the town of about 15,000 people—this meant that they were often rejected and persecuted (Dennis Hamm, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon in Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, 62-65). Yet, they were one of the most spiritually strong churches, even financially helping other churches out of their poverty! So, Paul tells them: Grow even stronger! Another way of translating this text is: ‘Since there is encouragement in Christ [which you already have], since there is consolation from love [you have this too, even if you may not feel it], since there is sharing in the Spirit, and since there is compassion and sympathy, then make my joy complete.’—make your spiritual father even happier. We’ll get to how they will do this in the second truth. For now, we’re focusing on the fact that God always gives enough grace.
In the 2002 film Minority Report, Tom Cruise plays a police officer in the future whose unit can predict murders before they happen, and each officer has a watch that tells them how much time they have before a murder occurs. It supposedly goes well until his unit predicts he will kill someone. The rest of the movie is him on the run and he tells people: ‘I’m not going to kill that man. I don’t even know him.’ However, it turns out that that man was the killer of his son, and this drives Cruise’s character to insane anger. As he’s beating the man, we get closer to the predicted moment when he’ll kill. As the time on the watch counts down, we see that he is going to shoot him. But, in the room, his colleague whispers, ‘You can choose.’ As the watch counts down to zero, he’s about to shoot… but doesn’t… because he has a choice.
Because of God’s grace, we always have a choice to choose love and to avoid sin. Now, when we say God gives enough grace, we don’t mean He gives enough grace to pass every exam or overcome every illness. St. Ignatius says that God leaves enough grace for salvation, that is, to love Him.
St. Anthony Neyrot is a unique saint. Born in Italy in 1423, he became a Dominican priest and was taken captive to Tunisia. While suffering in prison, he decided to become Muslim and get married—for a priest, it doesn’t get much worse than that! Yet, some months later, he put on his Dominican habit and publicly declared himself a Christian, which led to being stoned to death. If ever we think we’ve done such horrible sins that we can’t love Jesus or become a saint, think of St. Anthony Neyrot’s sins and how the Holy Spirit gave him enough grace to turn back!
God’s grace is available to us even when we’re far from Him—is that clear? St. Anthony was in mortal sin but the Holy Spirit offered him grace to love Jesus again.
St. Edith Stein, born in 1891 to a devout Jewish family, lost her father when she was two, was made fun of by relatives, and often locked in a dark room by her older sister. By 15, she was an atheist. In university, she was searching for truth but ended up depressed: “Life seemed unbearable… I could no longer cross the street without wishing I would be run over by some vehicle. And when we went on an excursion, I hoped I would fall off a cliff and not return alive”. But the Holy Spirit was giving her grace to find Jesus. She met a married couple and felt that the husband loved her in a supernatural way. Unfortunately, he died in WWI. Edith thought the wife would be unconsolable but found her full of strength. Edith wrote, “This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine strength it imparts to those who carry it. It was the moment when my unbelief collapsed, Judaism paled and Christ shone forth; Christ in the mystery of the Cross.”
This leads to the second encouraging truth: When we’re suffering, let’s take care of our own legitimate needs, but also take care of others’. This goes back to a truth we talked about two years ago. A teenager who became quadriplegic, whenever she saw someone else on TV suffering, would put a stick in her mouth, type on a computer, and send an encouraging note to that person. Matt Hampson also a quadriplegic after a rugby accident, started the Get Busy Living Centre, to help others with rehabilitation and community.
St. Paul tells the Philippians: Since you have all these graces, love each other, and, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ” (2:5). Christ’s mindset was: “though he was in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited [meaning that, even though He was God and incapable of suffering, He didn’t let that stop Him from entering our suffering], but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (2:6-7), meaning becoming human and serving others. In the Roman town of Philippi, there were monuments and signs of people’s social status. But Jesus didn’t let His status as God prevent Him from taking care of others. So Paul is telling the Christians to imitate Jesus’ humility: “He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (2:8). In that world, “death on a cross was the ultimate extreme… of pain… and… humiliation” (Dennis Hamm, SJ, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon in Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture, 102). Jesus didn’t undergo this for Himself, but to help us, to forgive our sins.
Have you ever noticed that, when we’re suffering, we tend to focus on ourselves? That’s natural, and we should love ourselves, but it’s not good to focus exclusively on ourselves. The devil wants us to withdraw into ourselves, whereas God wants us to reach out to Him (that’s the vertical part of the Cross), and to others (that’s the horizontal). To reach out like this leads to Jesus’ Resurrection: “Therefore God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (2:9-11). The ‘name given’ to Jesus is ‘Lord,’ which, in the Old Testament, refers to God. In one famous Old Testament passage (Is 45:18-25), God says that He’s the only God, there is no other, and His name is ‘Lord.’ Paul is now saying that the only true God is not only the Father, but also His Son, Jesus, Who revealed His perfect love on the Cross, and now He reveals His perfect glory in the Resurrection.
How would we act knowing that we have strength from Jesus to love?
If we’re lonely, perhaps we can try to take care of others. If we’re feeling down, maybe we can cheer others up. Today, during our Name Tag Sunday, let’s say there’s something heavy on our hearts, perhaps we could pray for others by name, because maybe someone else here is suffering more than we are.
There are two encouraging truths: God is giving us enough grace to love. And, in our pain, let’s love ourselves and reach out to God and others.