Going Out On a Limb

Sister Linda Bechen, RSM, authored this post. Sr. Linda is a Sister of Mercy and the Vice President for Mission and Ministry at Mount Mercy University.

Recently, Pope Francis declared this as the Year of Joseph. In announcing this year, Pope Francis wrote in his Apostolic letter, Patris Corde, mindful of the COVID – 19 pandemic, which, he says, “has helped us see more clearly the importance of ‘ordinary people’ who, though far from the limelight, exercise patience, and offer hope every day. In this, they resemble St. Joseph, the man who goes unnoticed, a daily, discreet, and hidden presence, who nonetheless played an incomparable role in the history of salvation.” 

Based on our experience, I would venture that some of us might not have a lot of words to describe Joseph primarily because of the few and brief Scriptural references to him. Father, carpenter, husband, servant, quiet, brave, faithful, faith-filled, and committed. might be some that come to mind. To paraphrase Catherine McAuley, he was one who did the ordinary extraordinary well. In doing so, he responded to and could be an instrument of action and grace in God’s plan of salvation.  

 Joseph was a witness of discipleship; that is, he responded to the call to follow no matter the cost, circumstance, or challenge. This call is ours as well and manifested in lives which do not deviate very far from Joseph’s. Paying attention and being aware of what we are being called to as well as how our “yes” invites us to be stretched and deepened in new and often subtle ways. All is key in developing and growing our discipleship. Very simply, sometimes we are called to relinquish our “ordinariness”, our comfort zones to respond to the greatness that God’s desires to be revealed through us. 

Recently during Advent, I read a reflection from Max Lucado’s book, GodCame Near,in which he wrote about Joseph being a person whose life was secure as a carpenter in the village of Nazareth. There were several known’s in his life—he knew his occupation; he knew that as a young Jewish man that he would one day marry and through the grace of God that, hopefully, the blessing of children would be his; he knew that Nazareth would be his home. This security, however, was upended when several challenges were placed before him with the announcement of Mary’s pregnancy. 

 In responding faithfully to his commitment to wed Mary, he opens himself further to what he is being called to. It doesn’t stop here. He is thrust out of the known to embrace other possibilities not only for him alone but for his family. With each step, he moves in faith to the next and the path is revealed through time and circumstance. Lucado states that Joseph was invited to go out on a limb and at times, nudged to go further in order that God’s salvation could be revealed and realized. 

Ironically, a couple of days after reading this, I watched a squirrel gingerly on a limb of tree. I noted that it was easy for the squirrel to navigate the broad branches but it was a challenge the farther out the squirrel went or when the branches became thin. At one point, the squirrel clutched the limb and literally inched its way back to the security of the trunk. He continued his exploration always retreating to the trunk.  

Much has transpired for each of us over the days and weeks of the pandemic which have unfolded into months and now reaching into a which are reaching into a year. The reading and watching the squirrel’s exploration have sparked me to ask: For whom…for what am I willing to go out on a limb? How far out on the limb am I willing to go? What are the securities in my life that I am willing to “put aside” to respond more deeply or more fully to God’s call or desire for me? 

During this year, let us look to Joseph as a model of faith and discipleship in responding to the greatness of God in our lives. Let us join with Lucado in praying:  

Heavenly Father, I see in Joseph’s life the importance of responding to your call. Help me to be like him and to have the courage to go out on the limb you are calling me to. Strengthen my faith to believe you will always be there to support me. Amen. 

 

 

1/17 Post #2 - Loving Our Enemies: How Jesus' Command Affects Our View of "Enemy"

 This is the second post for this week. This post is by Dr. Bryan Cross, Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Mount Mercy University.

The imperative from Jesus to love our enemies is grounded on two premises: the premise that even those whose character is evil are loved by God, as shown by the daily benefits God gives such persons (e.g. physical life, breath, sunlight, rain), and the imperative to be perfect as our Father in Heaven is perfect. Jesus says to his disciples that if we were to love only those who love us, or to greet only our brothers, we would be no better than "tax collectors" and "Gentiles." Thus to love only those who love us is to fall short of the ethical standard demonstrated in God's love for both the just and the unjust.

But when as at present love is so widely conceived not as a choice but primarily as a feeling, the imperative to love one's enemies becomes unintelligible. That is because the imperative seems to translate into a requirement to deny or suppress one's feelings toward those who have harmed oneself or others one loves, or who intend to do so. Yet even the Gentile, Plato, argued that just persons would not want to make their enemies less just. Only unjust persons would want such a thing. Rather, he argues, just persons seek to make unjust persons become just. And from the broader Catholic intellectual tradition we learn that love at the level of the will by its very nature seeks two things. Love seeks both the good for the one loved, and seeks to bring about with the one loved the fullest kind of virtuous union fitting for the respective stations in life of the person loving and the person loved. Therefore love for one's enemies seeks for their attainment of their true good, and ultimately, inasmuch as possible, reconciliation and virtuous friendship with them.

In this way Jesus's imperative to love our enemies contains within itself the implicit truth that those we think of as enemies are not in essence our enemies but rather are in essence our neighbors, whatever the magnitude of their opposition to our well-being. This imperative thereby broadens and redefines our conceptual paradigm of the arena of goods and evils, by reconceiving within it what is truly our enemy and what is at worst a kind of prisoner of war, in the conflict between good and evil. Just as the imperative to love our neighbor as we love ourselves teaches us to see our neighbor as another self, so the imperative to love our enemy teaches us to see our enemy as still in essence our neighbor, and thus as another self. Those fellow humans who seek our harm still share our human nature, but they seek our harm because at worst they lack moral or intellectual goods, i.e. virtues. Since this lack can potentially be rectified, and since love pursues the good for the one loved, the imperative to love our enemies obliges us to seek to benefit them by helping them obtain the goods they lack. Thus in the light of the ontological truth within this divine imperative, our wrestling is not ultimately against "flesh and blood," because every fellow human being is in essence our neighbor, not our enemy.

Of course we may need to defend ourselves and others from grave harm by fellow humans who by demonstrated disposition or intention are a threat to ourselves or to the common good. Certainly we have an ethical obligation to protect the common good, and to prevent actions that gravely harm the common good. And loving our enemies does not undermine or oppose our obligation to prevent injustice, to seek justice in our societies, including justice for victims of injustice. Nor are we capable of rectifying every privation of good. And in some unique cases our presence can be a cause of stumbling or distress, in which case love requires that our benevolence remain at a distance.

But the divine imperative to love our enemies does not permit us to categorize, conceive, or scapegoat any human or group of humans as in essence our enemy. This divine imperative, so embraced, thereby perspectivally and necessarily transforms a social, political, religious, or ethnic polarization from that in which the other group is conceived as the essential or ultimate enemy, to one in which the other is seen as constituted by our brothers and sisters from whom we are now estranged. In this way embracing this divine imperative breaks down such dividing walls.

We also have to keep in mind that the underlying reason why those we count as enemies seek to harm us may turn out to be that we are the ones lacking moral or intellectual goods. In such a case we may need to learn something from those we count as our enemies. So we cannot rightly assume a priori that those who oppose us do so because of an intellectual or moral flaw on their part. But whether my flaw is the cause of the conflict or my enemy's flaw is that cause, neither nullifies the truth that those who seek our harm are not in essence our enemies but are so only at most by contingent privations of goods.

In the epistemic light of this divine imperative our goal cannot be to harm or destroy those who threaten our well-being, or in indifference exile them from our sight. Instead loving our enemies elevates our goal to one in which we seek to become a means of well-being to our enemies, and ultimately if possible to be reconciled with them. That remains true whatever the level of culpability our enemies bear for their own condition, whether moral or intellectual. It remains true even when they persecute us, as Jesus teaches. To love our enemies calls us first to see our enemies as at worst our neighbors ensnared, even if culpably ensnared, in ignorance, error, or vice. In such cases, loving our enemies requires seeking to benefit them insofar as is in our power by the patient effort needed to free them from such ignorance, error, and vice, as we would want others to do for us if we were in their condition. 

1/17 Post #1 - St. Andrew, MLK, and Christian Humility

This is the first of two posts for this week. This post is by Michael Beard, MMU Campus Minister.

Humility has been on my mind frequently as of late. Someone once disabused me of the notion that humility was self-denigration denial of my gifts; rather, humility is quite simply the recognition of one’s own limitedness, and in the Christian context, that means recognizing one’s status as creature and God’s status as Creator. To quote the priest in the film Rudy, “There is a God, and I’m not Him.” To live in humility is to continuously uncover what that concretely means in our daily lives, both in how we interact with the world and how we think. 

 

Andrew, brother of Peter, is one of my favorite non-Jesus folks who helps me understand how a dope like me can live out how Jesus calls us to live. For Catholics, this Sunday (1/17) we hear from John’s Gospel account how Andrew met Jesus for the first time. John the Baptist (JtB for short) points Jesus out to him and another disciple of JtB, and they go and seek Jesus out. When Jesus asks what they are looking for, Andrew does not answer grandly; he doesn’t even directly answer Jesus’ question. Instead, he simply asks, “Lord, where are you staying?” Andrew was probably intrigued and bewildered by John’s description of Jesus as God’s sacrificial lamb (“Behold, the Lamb of God”); I don’t know what all he made of it. Regardless, it compelled him to learn more about this person. Jesus invites him closer, and Andrew’s new encounter convinces him: he has found God’s anointed one. 

 

Often we can’t put a finger on what we want, nor do we have an arsenal of GRE and SAT words to most precisely and eloquently articulate what is welling up within our hearts. Many folks who look to become Catholic don’t have a clear or coherent reason at the beginning of their journey; they had some sort of encounter that left them wanting to experience more. It could be a powerful spiritual experience that motivates them, but it could easily be a small something—the tiniest blip on the radar—that made them do a double-take and left them curious. Most ministers facilitating somebody’s journey into Catholicism wouldn’t expect elaborate essays on why somebody would want to become Catholic; they’ll meet them where they are and journey with them as they discover what resonated in their heart. That’s how it is in our relationship with Jesus, too: Jesus will meet us wherever we are and journey with us as we discover and fill the yearnings of our hearts.  

 

Andrew repeatedly offers a model for how to approach life as a follower of Jesus and a believer in God. Rather than got caught up in the impossibility of a task, or his inability to formulate a perfect answer, he simply offers what he has and what’s available. He doesn’t have a precise answer to Jesus’ question; so what? He offers what words he can, and Jesus meets him and guides him to where he needs to go. They don’t have enough money or resources to feed thousands of people (John 6); so what? Here’s what they do have, and maybe God can work wonders with it.  

 

It’s the same for all of us. With Christian humility, the temptation to despair at limitation, mortality, humanity, sinfulness, etc. will be far more possible to fight. The call to holiness, relationship with Jesus, and for going forward is simple: offer what is to God, knowing this is the same God who has worked wonders and who loves more deeply than we can fathom. By Jesus’ grace, trusting in Him, we can rejoice in our littleness rather than let it hinder us. As Paul says, we can do all in Christ who strengthens us. 

 

This takes on a particular salience this week: as we remember the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; after the killings and shootings of this summer (and many, many years); in the midst of events at the capitol building. In the face of hatred, evil, violence, etc., the temptation to despair might be strong. The temptation to pretend everything is fine is also strong. Humility helps us to engage with the world, recognizing it for what it is, and engage in the concrete ways that we can. What can we commend to the Lord? What small things can be done with great love? God puts us exactly where we need to be—what are the concrete circumstances of our life, of our day, of our relationships? Simply because we cannot individually in a single month or action dismantle structures of sin that have had generations of development and myriad people enforcing it does not mean we are without effect. 

 

Similarly, what weighs at you, nags at you, tempts you to despair? Is there a restlessness in your heart, a yearning, an ache, or something inexpressible in words? Place it in God’s hands in prayer. These are not the grandest of actions, but the smallest of seeds can grow mightily. There are any number of saints (including Andrew) in whose lives and actions one might see this point illustrated. One might well see it in the life and fruits of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well.

Inaugural Post

 Welcome to the first post of the Mustang Musings blog. The hope is that this will serve as a place to find brief reflections week to week--and from a variety of voices across the campus! 

To get things started, I will offer a brief reflection for the week of January 10. "I", by the way, am Michael Beard, Campus Minister here at the Mount. As a fair warning and perhaps as a call to come back, I don't plan on all the entries here being as long as this one.

Anybody who's tried to make any plans this semester knows that you need to plan for your initial plan to fall through. Have a backup. Call an audible, roll with the punches, etc. Naturally, such was the case for this reflection (and my week in general): this time it was not due to the pandemic as much as by the events of Wednesday, January 6. I don't plan on offering a reflection quite in the vein of more capable individuals vested with more authority. Instead, let me humbly offer something that has come to mind as the political divides in this country have grown ever wider and deeper.

"To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God, or what parable can we use for it? It is like a mustard seed that, when it is sown in the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on the earth. But once it is sown, it springs up and becomes the largest of plants and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade." (Mark 4:30-32)

Jesus doesn't liken the Kingdom to the mighty Lebanon Cedar or some other tree known in the region for its magnificence. Jesus likens the Kingdom to what was for any farmer except a mustard farmer, a weed. In fact, it was a weed that was unstoppable once it had been planted. The seeds are so tiny, resilient, and numerous. The plant is similarly resilient and well-adapted to inhospitable soil and growing conditions.

I spoke with the Catholic club Emmaus at the beginning of last semester and used this observation as the key for how to engage in faith at college: embrace the mustard seed planted in your heart, let it take over, and let it interrupt your manicured fields, your plans, etc. I think it's important in this time, too, for all people who profess belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Savior, to reflect on this parable. 

As we recall Jesus' entry into the world with the Christmas season fresh in our rearview mirrors, let's remember that God, in fact, entered the world less like a majestic cedar and more like a mustard seed, being laid in a manger having been born in a stable. Jesus' message, both then and now, is like a mustard seed, too. When the exhortations to love and to forgive come head-to-head with our impulse to revile, resent, and hate, how easy it is to think of love and forgiveness as annoying weeds that we should ignore. How many rationalizations we can give for why our hatred, our tribalism, our pettiness, our resentment, our embrace of the wisdom of the sword are the right, the justified, the reasonable, even the noble course of action! How tempting it is to carve out the wisdom of the cross from Jesus' teachings and life to make our religious beliefs align with a candidate, a party, or how we're currently living. We don't generally like being challenged, called up short, being made uncomfortable, or compelled to examine what we're doing so as to change. To our baser instincts, to our vices, to our flawed view, the mustard seed is a weed: unwanted, invasive, overrunning the field. But for the Christian, the mustard seed is the crop we want. We curb the mustard's spread and emphasize the other growths at to our own detriment and peril.

Is there a takeaway for our daily lives? Yes. Bishop Robert Barron and Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble, FSP put it better than I can. In short, Bishop Barron has called us as individuals and a nation to engage in an examination of conscience. To use my own imagery above, he's called us to see where we spurn the mustard and cultivate the bad plants. You can find his reflection here. Sr. Theresa, in turn, composed several questions to aid in that self-examination. I offer them to you below:

"1. Do I make an effort to inform myself in a way that is open to truth wherever it might be found or do I only read opinions and media with which I always agree?

2. Do I make an effort to find, understand, and read news sources that are objective and follow journalistic standards?

3. Do I regularly reduce complex issues to simplistic, partisan sound bites to avoid engaging honestly and vulnerably with people with whom I disagree?

4. Do I speak of my ideological opponents in a way that dehumanizes, stereotypes, or objectifies them? Do I speak scornfully or dismissively of those with whom I disagree rather than engaging with their ideas?

5. Do I allow feelings of rage, hatred, and bitterness toward those I see as political enemies grow in my heart?

6. Do I cultivate sin in my heart more than I cultivate virtue?

7. Do I read spiritual books as much as or more than I read the news?

8. Do I speak of and focus on political events more than the Church’s liturgical calendar?

9. Am I regularly distracted from my responsibilities by news, pundits, political arguments, and negative feelings toward those with whom I disagree?

10. What are my highest priorities? Where do I direct most of my energies? Do I put living for God first in my life?

For all those injured and who lost their lives recently, we pray they may rest in peace.

For an end to division in our nation, Lord hear our prayer.

That peace, justice, and truth may reign in our hearts and in our nation, Lord hear our prayer."

Michael Beard is Campus Minister at Mount Mercy University. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he has made the Midwest his home for 9 of the last 10 years. He lives nearby with his wife and daughter.