Monday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time
If you have not experienced the delight of reading some of the ‘sayings’ of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, try surfing the internet and they are easily found; it is time well spent. Here is a little story for you from a book called The Sayings of the Desert Fathers: The Alphabetical Collection by Benedicta Ward:
“Abbot Lot went to see Abbot Joseph and said, ‘Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule,
and my little fast, my prayer, meditation, and contemplative silence; and as according as I am able
I strive to cleanse my heart of bad thoughts: now what more should I do?’ The elder rose up in reply
and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like lamps of fire. He said, ‘Why not
become all flame?’”
Today’s first reading from the Book of Judges, the Israelites are worshiping Baal and other gods and goddesses of their neighbors. Their behavior reflects a people totally self-involved and unwilling to follow the Lord of their ancestors. Their lives stand in contrast to the Rich Young man in the reading from Matthew’s Gospel as well the story of young Abbot Lot; both are living out their lives with commendable moral character –even going a bit beyond that required of them. The question both Abbot Lot and the Rich Young man pose (‘now what more should I do?’ and ‘what do I still lack?’) points to the difference between the ‘ordinary’ Christian and the Christian who is ‘all flame’. How does one become, as the elder Abbot Joseph says, ‘all flame’?
Saint Pope John Paul II, in his Encyclical letter Veritatis Splendor, says the answer “ can only be found by turning one's mind and heart to the "One" who is good… the moral life presents itself as the response due to the many gratuitous initiatives taken by God out of love for man.” Our moral behavior, our religious observances must be something more than the fulfillment of duties. This can happen only in the context of a love relationship with God where ever deepening trust and devotion and surrender ignite our hearts—then we become ‘all flame’. It requires, as John Paul II puts it, “holding fast to the very person of Jesus, partaking of his life and his destiny, sharing in his free and loving obedience to the will of the Father. By responding in faith and following the one who is Incarnate Wisdom, the disciple of Jesus truly becomes a disciple of God.”
This is all about our personal response to being loved!
Through Jesus, the Incarnation of God the Father, the fullness of love is meant to be realized in our own flesh.
As John Paul II says, hold fast to Jesus and allow yourself to fall in love. Everything else will then fall into place and be exactly as it is meant to be. And may you then 'become all flame’!
--Gail Lyman