According to tradition, Saint Francis of Assisi once said: “Above all the graces and gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.” Saint Francis means that the greatest grace in life is the ability to sacrifice self-interest for the love of God and neighbor. It means that we are called, by God and for God’s sake, to love Him and to love others more than we love ourselves. For most of us, answering the call to love is very difficult, especially in a culture that emphasizes self-interest and self-satisfaction above all else. And yet, this call to love is the ultimate challenge of discipleship and the gospel life.

If we seek to become disciples, to live the gospel, and to fulfill our vocation to love, then let us begin in earnest. If we seek to set aside self-interest for God and for others, then we must learn who we are, what we want, what we have to give, and what we are called to give up. We must begin by asking ourselves this difficult question: “Who am I?” In his book, “Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith”, Father Henri Nouwen, one of the most influential spiritual writers of the twentieth century, explains that in a busy, complicated, and stressful world, we sometimes lose track of our most basic spiritual identity. We become overwhelmed by the petty tyrannies of the world: ambition, finances, gossip, health, traffic, work, and the competing demands of family, friends, and making ends meet. And when we become overly distracted by these things, we can forget that we are beloved children of God and we sometimes seek solace in the often sinful temptations of the world.

Father Nouwen reassures us that this need not happen. He reminds us that our deepest value and truest identity is affirmed by the simple but profound truth that God loves us. Reflecting on the Baptism of the Lord, Nouwen reminds us that like Jesus, we, too, are the “beloved” of God. He writes: “As a Christian, I am firmly convinced that the decisive moment in Jesus’s public life was his baptism, when he heard the divine affirmation, ‘You are my Beloved on whom my favor rests.’ In this core experience, Jesus is reminded in a deep, deep way of who he really is.” According to Father Nouwen, within each person is an “inner voice of love” that seeks to remind us that we, too, are among the beloved of God; and that we should listen to this divine voice, rather than seek passing comfort in some worldly passion or vice.

All too often, however, we listen instead to the world. The noise of the world can easily overwhelm the soft voice of God that speaks to us in the silence and stillness of our hearts. We seem deaf toward the divine voice that speaks with a love that is boundless and a mercy that is beyond measure. The only cure for this spiritual deafness is the “discipline of prayer.” Father Nouwen writes: “I have come to define prayer as listening to that voice, to the one that calls me beloved…The discipline of prayer is to constantly go back to the truth of who we are and claim it for ourselves. My life is rooted in my spiritual identity. We must go back to our first love, back regularly to that place of core identity.” In this way, prayer is the act of listening for God’s gentle voice: a voice that speaks to us with love and places that love at the core of our human identity.

Earlier this week throughout the world, the Catholic Church celebrated the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In the Gospel for that day, we heard how the Father spoke from heaven: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17).” And in this Sunday’s Gospel, we are reminded of Jesus’s baptism and the Father’s love for him. Of course, we know that Jesus is the Son of God and that we are merely human beings. Each of us suffers from the primal wound. Each of us sometimes fails to embrace our “belovedness” in the eyes of God. We sometimes fail to embrace the love that is God’s gift to us. We fall short of being the person who we are called to be. And we sometimes fail to do what we are called to do — to love God and neighbor.

Despite these shortcomings, we are invited to return again and again to the discipline of prayer that always leads back to God, to God’s great love for us, and to the “belovedness” at the center of our human identity. Sometimes prayer will console us. Sometimes prayer will challenge us. Sometimes prayer will inspire joy. And sometimes prayer will demand penance and reconciliation. And yet whenever we pray, we return to the central truth of God’s endless love for us, for each one of us, at all times, no matter what. In addition, when we embrace God’s love for us, we become better equipped to live the Gospel, to share God’s love without counting the cost, and to rebuild the Church, one soul at a time. As Saint Francis said so long ago: “Above all the graces and gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming self.” Let us, then, begin the spiritual journey. Let us become the beloved of God by our every thought, word, and deed.

May the Lord give you peace!
Cliff

Cliff Garvey
Associate Minister
Catholic Community of Gloucester & Rockport
Contact: cgarvey@ccgronline.com

Note: On behalf of the Catholic Community of Gloucester & Rockport, Father Jim wishes to thank Jody Cole of Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, for allowing us to use her inspirational icon of the “Theophany” on our website and cover of our weekly newsletter. Prints of this icon are available for purchase. For more information, please visit: jcoleicons.com.

CCGR Weekly Newsletter (1-15-17)
Bringing Home the Word (1-15-17)

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