Reflections by Michael Dwyer: Tues 1 Aug-Mon 7 Aug

Tue 1^st August

Seeing as Having

St Gregory of Nyssa wrote a homily on the Beatitudes, in which he writes, ‘in scriptural usage ‘seeing’ means ‘having’. When I read this beautiful explanation, I was struck deeply by its power. Consider its contextual quotes: ‘Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God’, ‘May eternal light shine upon him/her’. I am particularly enthused by this expression as it bears a practical application for all our lives today in 2023. If seeing means having, am I looking for the right things in the right places? When I look all around me, what do I see? How is what I see affecting what I have? 

Wed 2^nd August

Creation – The First Incarnation

If seeing means having, there are further ramifications. When we look all around us and see the wonders of creation, we are then called inwards to ‘taste’ the wonders of creation. Jesus Christ came into the world to share life with us for us to have it to the full. We understand that this is not something to be greedy about or something to cling onto, but rather something to let go and to surrender to Jesus Christ and God that the creation that surrounds us all as visible signs of God’s love for us is something that our creator willingly wishes to share with us as a gift of life too.

Thurs 3^rd Aug.

Maternal Love – A Reflection of the Divine

When my friends recently celebrated the birth of their daughter, I was blown away by how the arrival of a baby is a visible sign of God’s love. My friends are enriched by their baby’s presence, attuned to her many ways of playful expression. Witnessing the depth of their appreciation for their new child and their unconditional love for one another, I have been struck by how Our Lady must have loved the Christ child. The tender care of a mother caressing her infant and enfolding love into its very being is something holy. It gives further depth to the meaning that to see is to have, to see a mother loving her child is a practical manifestation of the binding love of God, present in our world today.

Friday 4^th Aug

Finding Hope

The last posting considered the very positive force of a mother’s love. There is no denying that there can be much colder events in our world today. Social media is littered with examples of discord and tension manifesting in protests and riots. American TV host Fred Rodgers used to extol the benefits of news cameras looking for the helpers when we see tragedies or difficulties in the news. In these people, Fred commented, “we find hope”. Hope is a tangible force when we consider that to see is to have, what we align with will manifest in God’s own ways and forces. 

Saturday 5^th August

Liberating Acceptance

Considering how God’s ways and forces manifest in our lives reminds me of a passage from Carl Jung. When I meet people who outline something that is really challenging them, really gnawing at them and they are struggling to overcome it, I often use the essence of the passage below to help point to how the first step of anything we meet in life is acceptance: ‘People forget that even doctors have moral scruples and that certain patient’s confessions are hard even for a doctor to swallow, yet the patient does not feel himself accepted unless the very worst in him is accepted too. No one can bring this about by mere words. It comes only through reflection and through the doctor’s attitude towards himself and his own dark side. If the doctor wants to guide another, or even accompany him a step of the way, he must feel with that person’s psyche. He never feels it when he passes judgment. Whether he puts his judgments into words or keeps them to himself makes not the slightest difference. Condemnation can never liberate, it can only oppress. I am the oppressor of the person I condemn, not his friend and fellow sufferer.’

Sunday 6^th August

Transfiguration

One of the first things we ever learned about Christ is that he was both God and man. He was divine and human at the same time. If you like he was divinity dressed up in human form. For three years the apostles shared his human life seeing just brief glimpses in his miracles and wonders that there was so much more to him than met the eye. In today’s gospel he takes his three closest companions with him up a high mountain where he is transfigured in their sight. His human cloak is rolled back his clothing become dazzling white and and they see his divinity or his inner essence.

Through Baptism we celebrate the fact that in Christ we have become God’s adopted sons and daughters with full inheritance rights to his riches. That means that we too have both a divine and a human reality. We are each chips off the block that is God, we carry a divine essence within us and beneath this outer appearance there is the part of me that is fearfully and wonderfully made. In fact it is made in the image and likeness of God.

Why then is it that so many go through life feeling worthless or thinking that their lives are not up to much, or that they don’t have much to offer? Surely it must be because we have never discovered that just beneath the surface there is the pearl of great price and that the kingdom is within us.

The priceless diamond that we are comes into the world looking like a crumpled paper bag. Before we ever make our first cry the diamond has already accumulated a share of packaging. It’s part of what we mean by original sin. The human packaging rarely if ever comes intact. Sometimes there are physical defects we could well do without. Always there are emotional and psychological characteristics that we inherit from those who have gone before us.

The problem is that when we don’t accept the packaging, we never discover the diamond inside. Children who are loved unconditionally, properly cared for affirmed and encouraged, have a far greater chance of accepting the packaging than say a child that was rejected or shamed or abused. The important thing is that we don’t mistake the parcel for the package because inside all of us just waiting to be discovered is a beautiful diamond just waiting to be discovered.

So many of us, when we think of who we are, never get beyond the sometimes very tattered packaging. We don’t know who we really are. So, we define ourselves in terms of what we do, as if that is what makes us important, or in terms of what we have in terms of material things, as if having more makes us more. Then we can so easily define ourselves in terms of others approval or in relation to someone else. It might be as someone’s mother or father, someone’s wife or someone’s husband. The problem with this is that when that person or thing that we depend on for our identity is no longer there we find ourselves in trouble. Many who have lost a partner can’t let them go for that very reason; the person was too much part of his or her identity.

We live in such a consumer driven world where everything directs us to look out there for what we need in order to find happiness. It takes wisdom to realize that in the words of Shakespeare, ‘all things are with more spirit chased than enjoyed.’ No outer achievement, success, person or thing can deliver what it promises. The search is enjoyable but the achievement quickly becomes boring.  Our hearts remain empty and restless. Such is the pain of being human.

This is the great gift of our faith, that it directs us to look inside for what we need and reminds us that at the deepest level of our being lies a precious diamond that is really our divine essence. When people give up on their religion I wonder do they have any realization, that in walking away, it is their true selves, that priceless diamond, that they are actually forsaking.

Monday 7^th August

The Path of Surrender

Considering acceptance, it reminds me that surrender is a beautiful path of prayer. When paying a visit on a pilgrimage to Our Lady’s Island a few years ago, I picked up a copy of the surrender novena. Upon reading it, I learned of the wisdom of Servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo, who was St Padre Pio’s Spiritual Director. I was particularly taken with the reflection for day one of the novena, which can be found below. There is so much wisdom in this passage. Let “Thy will be done” be our prayer today: “Why do you confuse yourselves by worrying? Leave the care of your affairs to me and everything will be peaceful. I say to you in truth that every act of true, blind, complete surrender to me produces the effect that you desire and resolves all difficult situations. O My Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything”. The novena can be found here: 

https://hallow.com/blog/how-to-pray-the-surrender-novena/