Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Today’s text

John 12:23-25

Jesus replied to them: Now the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Reflection

I do not hate my life, Jesus, but I recognize hyperbole when I hear it and this is hyperbole, deliberate exaggeration to make a point.

Saints of all ages have known the truth of what you are saying. And in our best moment so do we. St. Francis said it well: “in giving we receive, in pardoning we are pardoned, and in dying we are born to eternal life.”

The willing heart is able to give itself away for the sake of another--a friend, a family member, a colleague in arms, even an enemy. In losing yourself, surrendering who you are to bless and give life to another, we enter eternal life, here and now.

My soul knows this, Jesus, though I easily forget and act as if life is about protecting myself and what is mine.

I enter a new consciousness when I relax my defensiveness and release my need to prove myself. With joy, I freely give myself, my time, my blessing, my acceptance and welcome to all I meet. I flow like a gentle, joyful stream, knowing I am a single current in a great river of divine grace that extends through this world and into every universe.

I enter every moment knowing that this is all I really have, this moment, knowing, too, that life is found in bringing my whole self to each moment, to attend t it, to give myself to it, to surrender to its needs and demands, … losing myself in the moment.

And I discover once more that in giving I receive, in accepting the soul of another I taste again your great acceptance of me, and I am new. The fresh breeze of new-born spring gentles my heart and lightens my step, my soul and makes sweet my words.

I ask you, Jesus: How can I hate life in this world when in this world I can taste such grace, this beauty which is life eternal?

But you are right: Such gracious freedom comes in giving up, in pardoning, in our willingness to give ourselves away for the sake of loving the world as you love it. It is then that we know: in losing we gain, in giving we receive; in dying to what we are, we tasting the life of eternity … now.

Pr. David L. Miller