Nov 2, 2020

All Souls Day

 

Borne to Dust

 

For what shall it profit a man, 

if he shall gain the whole world, 

and lose his own soul?

Mark 8:36

 

Our Lord has responded to this question many times, “What must I do?” Our quasi infinite spirit longs for eternal fields of good, our all too finite fallenness fights for exaltation of the momentary pleasure. Jesus, Who is All, asks for all, for this is salvation. 

Our flesh, which struggles against the will of God, desires to have two measures which keeps us from “being our brother’s keeper”, that is, like Cain, inclined since the fall to kill the good which is near us, which we see in our brother, our sister. The other who does good, the Abel’s, in the fallen mind and heart becomes “enemy.” This is a hard truth told in the very beginning, because, in truth, we will struggle with it until Jesus comes in glory. 

Francis learned this Word of the Gospel somewhere along the way and found that unless one sells all, as Our Lord says to the rich young man, one could not follow without so many attachments to the life before, as Saint Paul says, “how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven”. Transformed from a narrow love, for that is no love at all, Francis began to adhere to the letter of the Gospel, even more, to become mother to the near one, the “proximo”.

God the Father, who is nearer to us that we are to ourselves, loves us creatures so much that He sent the Son that we might not be lost. The Son has loved, present – loves us, with all Heart, Mind, Soul, Strength, and, enriching us with the same power to love as He has loved us, Divinity. Christ came “from His royal throne” to share in the miseries of human nature and grant sinful man the possibility of redemption. This Crucified, Passionate Love has become Brother’s Keeper, fulfilling the will of God now incarnate as Word.

Salvation was obtained in absolute kenosis, becoming-nothingness-in-outpouring. This is the Gospel we are to put into practice, a total love of God and neighbor. This is the message, the reality of our Daily Bread, Jesus Christ present and living for us as the Most Holy Eucharist. Daily He chooses to place Himself in the hands of sinful man in order to save all by perfect obedience. Here we gave upon the Commandment of all-Love for God and creature, embracing what is poor and lifting it up to the heavens. How desperate is the condition of those who do not depend upon this Sacrament with all their heart and strength?

 

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