Meditation
Given During Holy Hour at Benedictine College
16 September 2008
Memorial of Sts Cyprian and Cornelius, martyrs
A reading from the Acts of martyrdom of St. Cyprian
The governor Galerius Maximus said: ‘Have you posed as the pontiff of a sacrilegious group?’ The bishop answered: “I have.’ Then the governor said: ‘Our most venerable emperors have commanded you to perform the religious rites.’ Bishop Cyprian replied: “I will not do so.’ Galerius Maximus said: ‘Consider your position.’ Cyprian replied: ‘Follow your orders. In such a just cause there is no need for deliberation.’ Then Galerius Maximus, after consulting with his council, reluctantly issued the following judgment: ‘You have long lived with your sacrilegious convictions, and you have gathered about yourself many others in a vicious conspiracy. You have set yourself up as an enemy of the gods of Rome and our religious practices. The pious and venerable emperors have been unable to draw you back to the observance of their holy ceremonies. You have been discovered as the author and leader of these heinous crimes, and will consequently be held forth as an example for all those who have followed you in your crime. By your blood the law shall be confirmed.’ Next he read the sentence from a tablet: ‘It is decided that Thascius Cyprian should die by the sword.’ Cyprian responded: ‘Thanks be to God!’
How closely each one of us gathered here tonight should want to imitate this great example of courage and faith shown by the Church father Cyprian. How much should we pray for each other tonight, that when we leave this time of prayer we would be more ready to give the world an uncomplicated witness of the strength of our faith in Jesus Christ. St. Cyprian, great bishop and martyr of the early Church, pray for us!
As vocation director of the Archdiocese, you might say that it is my job to help young men and women make a less complicated gift of their lives. Before all of us are so many good opportunities – things we could do with our lives, things we could study, people we could get closer to, that discernment of what we should actually do becomes complicated. Very few of us feel like we have the same opportunity put before St. Cyprian, to straightforwardly die in a blaze of glory in witness to our faith. Instead we feel like we have the opportunity to do a thousand different little things for God, and wonder if we will ever become self-disciplined enough to get to them all. An example would be a young person who at the same time wants to be an engineering and a theology major, another young person who wants to be married and yet also feels a strong attraction to religious life, yet another young person who wants to develop a deeper prayer life but also has to make time for a part-time job to help pay for his education. Other young people who want to make a big impact with their lives might also feel like a particular sin that is plaguing them must be perfectly conquered before they can consider making any bold moves in witness to Christ. Many of us feel like we have a long way to go before we can consider making a straightforward, powerful gift of our lives in imitation of someone great like St. Cyprian. We do not think such an opportunity is right in front of us.
As we discern what God is calling us to do with our lives, we have to assume however, that our opportunity to make a great and courageous gift of our lives is close. Dangerous is a discipleship that is always trying to make God and His will a bigger part of our lives, rather than abandoning our lives in response to His call. We have to be careful that our discipleship becomes more than a habit of making constant adjustments that hopefully will make our choices for our lives more pleasing to God. Instead, we have to continue to allow Jesus to blow apart our own expectations of what life should be, and be ready to make a genuinely sacrificial response to Jesus’ call to ‘leave everything’ and to follow Him. We should take every precaution against trying to relativize this call of Jesus so that it matches our own expectations more closely. We should instead expect Jesus to call us to something that is radical, somewhat unreasonable, and quite beyond our expectations, since it is in responding to this kind of call from our Lord that our life might possibly speak as loudly as did the life of St. Cyprian, or to put it more humbly, perhaps, our life might speak as loudly as it is supposed to speak, provided we do exactly what the Lord Jesus is asking of us.
Ssuch a readiness to make a heroic witness is not necessarily dependent upon age. St. Cyprian was older, of course, when made a martyr for the faith at the hands of the Roman governor, but Maria Goretti was a young teenager, the Blessed Mother herself was maybe 14 or 15 at the Annunciation. As I work throughout the Archdiocese, there are a few young people that I meet who are wanting to make as big of a splash as soon as they can. The average age of our seminarians went down significantly this year, as all 7 new seminarians are between the ages of 18 and 24. There are quite a few others in our diocese with whom I visit who are overly cautious in their discernment, even though they may be in their late 20’s or early 30’s, those who see their vocation as a puzzle to be solved, with no easily solution in sight. Normally, I would expect that a younger a person is, the more narcissistic they would be, focused only on what the possibilities are for erotically chasing after the good things that are possibly in front of them. Yet I can and do see some very young people who are ready instead to make a sincere gift of themselves, while I can see some older people who are trapped in a kind of adolescent discernment of being afraid of giving up any options whatsoever.
It is important, as Pope Benedict tells us in his first encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est, to be certain that eros and agape, the two sides of a love that comes together fully in God, are kept in proper balance. Erotic love that seeks only to add things to our lives, but is afraid of cutting anything loose, is narcissistic. Self-emptying love likewise is out of balance if its refuses to thank and to praise God for first having loved us, and for sending His only begotten Son as expiation for our sins. An erotic search for the deepest kind of love should bring us to the cross of Jesus and to the Eucharistic sacrifice, where we see divine love most fully revealed through a man who made Himself a slave of sinners so that He might save them. There is a transition, however, that must take place once we allow ourselves to drink deeply of this perfective kind of love. Eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus demands that we imitate the sacrifice through which divine love is perfectly poured out for us. Is it not disproportionate to eat the body and drink the blood of one who delivered Himself into the hands of sinners without fear or caution or hesitation while remaining cautious and fearful of making a mistake with the gift of our own lives. This is not to say that one should rush into a vocation, nor is it to say that the virtue of prudence, which shows us more easily the next step we should take, however small, should be abandoned. The example of Cyprian does remind us, however, that the goal of our lives is not to seek Jesus’ approval for the choices we are making, but to more radically and more perfectly follow Him, who will give us true freedom by always picking out a life for us that is bigger than any life we would pick for ourselves. If we are to speak the same language to our Lord that He speaks to us through the Blessed Sacrament, we must allow Him in our prayer to break apart our own expectations effectively, so that we can also say ‘This is my body, given for You. This is my blood, poured out for You.’ We must accept the challenge of giving our lives away to the mission the Lord has marked out for us as quickly and as completely as we can. We must likewise assume not that we have time to spare, but that our next opportunity to die for the Lord is right in front of us! This is what it means to carry about in our bodies the heart of a martyr. St. Cyprian, pray for us! Mary, Mother of our Vocations, pray for us!
Given During Holy Hour at Benedictine College
16 September 2008
Memorial of Sts Cyprian and Cornelius, martyrs
A reading from the Acts of martyrdom of St. Cyprian
The governor Galerius Maximus said: ‘Have you posed as the pontiff of a sacrilegious group?’ The bishop answered: “I have.’ Then the governor said: ‘Our most venerable emperors have commanded you to perform the religious rites.’ Bishop Cyprian replied: “I will not do so.’ Galerius Maximus said: ‘Consider your position.’ Cyprian replied: ‘Follow your orders. In such a just cause there is no need for deliberation.’ Then Galerius Maximus, after consulting with his council, reluctantly issued the following judgment: ‘You have long lived with your sacrilegious convictions, and you have gathered about yourself many others in a vicious conspiracy. You have set yourself up as an enemy of the gods of Rome and our religious practices. The pious and venerable emperors have been unable to draw you back to the observance of their holy ceremonies. You have been discovered as the author and leader of these heinous crimes, and will consequently be held forth as an example for all those who have followed you in your crime. By your blood the law shall be confirmed.’ Next he read the sentence from a tablet: ‘It is decided that Thascius Cyprian should die by the sword.’ Cyprian responded: ‘Thanks be to God!’
How closely each one of us gathered here tonight should want to imitate this great example of courage and faith shown by the Church father Cyprian. How much should we pray for each other tonight, that when we leave this time of prayer we would be more ready to give the world an uncomplicated witness of the strength of our faith in Jesus Christ. St. Cyprian, great bishop and martyr of the early Church, pray for us!
As vocation director of the Archdiocese, you might say that it is my job to help young men and women make a less complicated gift of their lives. Before all of us are so many good opportunities – things we could do with our lives, things we could study, people we could get closer to, that discernment of what we should actually do becomes complicated. Very few of us feel like we have the same opportunity put before St. Cyprian, to straightforwardly die in a blaze of glory in witness to our faith. Instead we feel like we have the opportunity to do a thousand different little things for God, and wonder if we will ever become self-disciplined enough to get to them all. An example would be a young person who at the same time wants to be an engineering and a theology major, another young person who wants to be married and yet also feels a strong attraction to religious life, yet another young person who wants to develop a deeper prayer life but also has to make time for a part-time job to help pay for his education. Other young people who want to make a big impact with their lives might also feel like a particular sin that is plaguing them must be perfectly conquered before they can consider making any bold moves in witness to Christ. Many of us feel like we have a long way to go before we can consider making a straightforward, powerful gift of our lives in imitation of someone great like St. Cyprian. We do not think such an opportunity is right in front of us.
As we discern what God is calling us to do with our lives, we have to assume however, that our opportunity to make a great and courageous gift of our lives is close. Dangerous is a discipleship that is always trying to make God and His will a bigger part of our lives, rather than abandoning our lives in response to His call. We have to be careful that our discipleship becomes more than a habit of making constant adjustments that hopefully will make our choices for our lives more pleasing to God. Instead, we have to continue to allow Jesus to blow apart our own expectations of what life should be, and be ready to make a genuinely sacrificial response to Jesus’ call to ‘leave everything’ and to follow Him. We should take every precaution against trying to relativize this call of Jesus so that it matches our own expectations more closely. We should instead expect Jesus to call us to something that is radical, somewhat unreasonable, and quite beyond our expectations, since it is in responding to this kind of call from our Lord that our life might possibly speak as loudly as did the life of St. Cyprian, or to put it more humbly, perhaps, our life might speak as loudly as it is supposed to speak, provided we do exactly what the Lord Jesus is asking of us.
Ssuch a readiness to make a heroic witness is not necessarily dependent upon age. St. Cyprian was older, of course, when made a martyr for the faith at the hands of the Roman governor, but Maria Goretti was a young teenager, the Blessed Mother herself was maybe 14 or 15 at the Annunciation. As I work throughout the Archdiocese, there are a few young people that I meet who are wanting to make as big of a splash as soon as they can. The average age of our seminarians went down significantly this year, as all 7 new seminarians are between the ages of 18 and 24. There are quite a few others in our diocese with whom I visit who are overly cautious in their discernment, even though they may be in their late 20’s or early 30’s, those who see their vocation as a puzzle to be solved, with no easily solution in sight. Normally, I would expect that a younger a person is, the more narcissistic they would be, focused only on what the possibilities are for erotically chasing after the good things that are possibly in front of them. Yet I can and do see some very young people who are ready instead to make a sincere gift of themselves, while I can see some older people who are trapped in a kind of adolescent discernment of being afraid of giving up any options whatsoever.
It is important, as Pope Benedict tells us in his first encyclical letter Deus Caritas Est, to be certain that eros and agape, the two sides of a love that comes together fully in God, are kept in proper balance. Erotic love that seeks only to add things to our lives, but is afraid of cutting anything loose, is narcissistic. Self-emptying love likewise is out of balance if its refuses to thank and to praise God for first having loved us, and for sending His only begotten Son as expiation for our sins. An erotic search for the deepest kind of love should bring us to the cross of Jesus and to the Eucharistic sacrifice, where we see divine love most fully revealed through a man who made Himself a slave of sinners so that He might save them. There is a transition, however, that must take place once we allow ourselves to drink deeply of this perfective kind of love. Eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus demands that we imitate the sacrifice through which divine love is perfectly poured out for us. Is it not disproportionate to eat the body and drink the blood of one who delivered Himself into the hands of sinners without fear or caution or hesitation while remaining cautious and fearful of making a mistake with the gift of our own lives. This is not to say that one should rush into a vocation, nor is it to say that the virtue of prudence, which shows us more easily the next step we should take, however small, should be abandoned. The example of Cyprian does remind us, however, that the goal of our lives is not to seek Jesus’ approval for the choices we are making, but to more radically and more perfectly follow Him, who will give us true freedom by always picking out a life for us that is bigger than any life we would pick for ourselves. If we are to speak the same language to our Lord that He speaks to us through the Blessed Sacrament, we must allow Him in our prayer to break apart our own expectations effectively, so that we can also say ‘This is my body, given for You. This is my blood, poured out for You.’ We must accept the challenge of giving our lives away to the mission the Lord has marked out for us as quickly and as completely as we can. We must likewise assume not that we have time to spare, but that our next opportunity to die for the Lord is right in front of us! This is what it means to carry about in our bodies the heart of a martyr. St. Cyprian, pray for us! Mary, Mother of our Vocations, pray for us!
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