Ofm / Haase / OFM This Sacred Moment

1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8308-6834-6
Verlag: InterVarsity Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 121 Seiten

What does it mean to be a holy person? The answer might surprise you.This delightful yet challenging book from spiritual director Albert Haase provides practical wisdom for becoming holy--right in the midst of 'ordinary' life.'Any and every situation holds the grace for the transformation called holiness. . . . [By] imitating Christ and emptying myself for the benefit of another,' Haase writes, 'I can become holy right where I am.'Haase guides us in this new way of living, offering practices that help us discern what God is calling us to in each moment, as well as clear direction for living in the Spirit, the source of our holiness. With brief, engaging chapters that share real stories of people who are living out holy transformation and short reflection questions, this book is designed to fit realistically into our already full lives.'I believe that holiness is not as elusive or impossible as most of us think,' Haase says. 'That's not to say it's easy; it certainly is not. But I think there are many people in the world . . . who know that God calls them right where they are. Living in and guided by the Spirit, they imitate Jesus: they selflessly respond to God's call in this sacred moment for the enrichment of others.'You can too. Here's how.

Albert Haase, O.F.M. (Ph.D., Fordham University), is adjunct professor of spirituality at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois. He is also director of the School of Spirituality at Mayslake Ministries in Westmont, Illinois. A former missionary to mainland China for over a decade, he is the coauthor of Enkindled and the author of Instruments of Christ (both published by St. Anthony Messenger Press).

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ofm, Albert Haase

Haase, Albert

OFM,

Leseproben

2

Selflessness as the Heart of Holiness

Think again about my friend Josh who changed a flat tire for an elderly woman he didn’t even know. I think his action says something quite important about holiness. Like countless others before him whom we consider to be holy, Josh selflessly responded to the need of the present moment. That reminds us that holiness is a lot simpler, less dramatic and, consequently, more challenging than most of us think.

By his own admission, Josh would have arrived at the coffee shop on time had it not been for his spontaneous response to a stranger’s flat tire. Seeing her need, without even thinking about it, he pulled over and offered her a helping hand. I believe this is exactly what holiness is all about: it is a selfless openness and response to God’s call in this sacred moment. And that call of God comes in the need that presently goes unmet or in the duty that is required in the present moment.

Holiness, then, is the lifelong journey out of slavery to the ego and its consuming preoccupation with self-concern self-image, self-gratification and self-preservation. It begins when we move out of the house of mirrors that most of us choose to live in and take up residence in a house of glass where we are constantly looking beyond ourselves, our concerns, our interests and our worries. It begins with selflessness.

A Perfect Example

Paul tells us that Jesus provides the perfect example of selflessness. In the letter to the Philippians, he encouraged the church, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:4-5). The apostle explained this mindset by saying that Jesus did not exploit his equality with God and use it to his own personal advantage or for his own personal gain. Rather, he “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Philippians 2:7).

To the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). This becoming poor to enrich the lives of others, or “self-emptying,” formed the very backbone of Jesus’ ministry. We see it in the incarnation, in Jesus’ friendship with sinners and the marginalized, in his total dedication and obedience to the will of his Abba, in his washing of feet, and in his surrender to and acceptance of the cross. Jesus himself described the limits of this self-emptying in this way: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). Selflessness is the very marrow of Christian holiness.

This attitude of selfless openness attacks the ego head-on, since the ego wants to control and manipulate everything and everyone within its range of influence. A selfless openness and response to whatever the present moment is asking of me, rooted in the desire to imitate the self-emptying of Jesus, incapacitates the ego and renders it powerless.

The belief that the need of the present moment is an invitation from God to forget myself and enrich the life of another is the motivating force and insight behind selfless openness. Indeed, the present moment as it unfolds before me is an expression of God’s will for me. That’s why this moment—and every moment—is sacred. God calls for a response in the cry of an infant, a neighbor’s need, a bloated stomach in Darfur and the near extinction of an animal species.

Ideally, our selfless acts should be the blossom of an openness and response to the present moment’s duty or need. An adaptable flexibility to what unfolds in the present moment made Josh’s act of charity possible. However, don’t be deceived; this approach can be tricky and downright risky. It demands living a life outside the confines of the ego with its constricting and exploitative obsession with what we have, what we do and what people think of us.

Far from a passive receptivity to whatever life throws my way, selfless openness calls for an alert attention to what is going on around me. It demands an awareness of what my five senses are picking up in the present circumstance and requires an active engagement with the world, especially the present moment and the situation in which I find myself.

Over the years, literally thousands of Christians, precisely because of their dedication to Christ, have leapt over the walls of the ego at a moment’s notice and selflessly given of themselves for the enrichment of others. I think of Franciscan Maximilian Kolbe, a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp, who freely exchanged his life for that of the condemned sergeant, husband and father Francis Gajowniczek. Soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan tell stories of buddies who, at great personal risk, exposed themselves to enemy fire in order to rescue wounded comrades. On September 11, 2001, police and firefighters raced toward the collapsing Twin Towers to save people while some office workers returned to their offices to help disabled coworkers escape. Every now and then in the news, we hear stories of people whose religious commitment called them to perform heroic acts of protest so that the lives of others can be improved. These are all portraits of selfless openness and contemporary holiness.

Jill is the mother of a newborn and a two-year-old toddler. She knows only too well what it means to empty herself into the lives of her two children. On her “bad days,” the self- emptying is an extraordinary challenge that tests her patience. On her “good days,” she gets a feeling of liberation and ultimate satisfaction, knowing her sacrifices are literally giving life to two children. This is the kind of self-emptying that occurs in households across the world, and is another portrait of selfless openness and contemporary holiness.

The Father of All of Us

Abraham, “the father of all of us,” to use Paul’s expression (see Romans 4:16), is one of the best examples of someone actively engaged with the situation in which he found himself. At seventy-five years of age, Abraham was called by God to go beyond the comfort zone and sense of security that we can only imagine were rightfully his at such an old age. Genesis 12 gives no indication of how Abraham experienced this call from God, nor does it give any indication of what went on in his mind and heart as he and his wife gathered up their possessions to move. The chapter simply makes clear the patriarch’s response: “So Abram went, as the LORD had told him” (Genesis 12:4). The letter to the Hebrews further highlights that “by faith . . . he set out, not knowing where he was going” (11:8). This self-emptying indicates that Abraham must have already been open and attentive to God so that, when he heard God calling him in the present moment to leave, he was ready to respond selflessly in obedience. And it certainly did not stop there.

In a most mysterious incident, Abraham’s selfless response was a testimony to the agony self-emptying can sometimes entail. God tested the patriarch with the command, “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you” (Genesis 22:2). Again, the text does not tell us what went on within Abraham’s mind and heart. All it says is, “So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac; he cut the wood for the burnt offering, and set out and went to the place in the distance that God had shown him” (Genesis 22:3). He asked no questions as he responded to God’s call in the present moment. The letter to the Hebrews interprets the patriarch’s response as an expression of his faith (see Hebrews 11:17-19). Though an angel’s hand did save the life of Isaac, Abraham’s obedience and selfless openness are disarming and heroic.

I have met many people who have found inspiration in the story of Abraham. I think of Alex and Eileen and their missionary call. I first met Alex and Eileen, a retired couple from Canada, while teaching in a Chinese university in Beijing. Theirs is a modern-day story of Abraham and Sarah. Two years into their retirement, Alex and Eileen heard a missionary from South America preach at their Anglican church. It was not simply the missionary’s words which struck them but also the valiant way he was living out his faith. As Alex and Eileen discussed what they heard that Sunday morning, something began to well up within them; they too felt oddly drawn to do what Abraham and Sarah and that missionary had done. As they talked with family and friends and their pastor, it became clear that they were being called to uproot and bring the gospel to another land. “And what better place to come to than China where you have to live the gospel since it is against the law for foreigners to preach it with their words,” Eileen told me as we sipped green tea inside the Forbidden City. In their selfless openness and response to the invitation of God, Alex and Eileen have shown themselves to be worthy children of “the father of all of us.”

Sally is another worthy child of Abraham. Every month she reminds me of the challenge and agony of selfless openness. She once had an amazing talent for singing. Though she never had voice lessons, she had sung in local community musicals as well as in her church choir. She relished the attention and the limelight that came with her singing. Within six months of starting spiritual direction with me, however, she began to lose her...