Unless God Draws Us (19th Sunday Ordinary B)

On a spiritual retreat, a committed lay campus minister reflected on her relationship with God particularly the aspect of her prayer life. She pointed out that in the early years of her relationship with God she tended to be in control. When she prayed, she did it in her own terms seeking for the results she expected to get, looking for consolation as reward and for deep spiritual insights as evidence of her spiritual growth. However, she realized she was forcing it and such an attitude had been somehow frustrating and tiring. She had to change her way of relating to God and her attitude even in prayer. Once she learned the humility of letting go of the helm, she stopped demanding from God and allowed God to be God. This allowed her to see prayer not in terms of results but in terms of a free encounter with God in God’s term. Now she lets God lead her. In her prayer life, results are irrelevant now; being in prayer is itself the consolation as she allows God to draw her into God’s loving presence.

There is a world of difference between being driven and being drawn. Being driven is an experience of being compelled, pushed, or forced. One is driven by hunger to steal; another is driven by anger to violence; a religious person may be driven by results to pray; many of us may be driven by our need to accomplish and need to succeed that is why we serve.

On the other hand, being drawn is an experience of gentle attraction, an experience of allowing oneself to be enticed and to be led. A person who is drawn does not control, nor demand, but allows. When one is drawn, such person participates in and not directs the experience.

In the gospel reading today (Jn 6:41-51) which is part of the Bread of Life discourse, Jesus displays awareness of these two dynamics. He observes how the Jews are driven by hunger and by curiosity that is why they keep on following him. They are driven by their own expectations and hence fail to see the truth in itself! They see only the bread miraculously multiplied and not the Bread of Life. They see only Jesus, the son of the carpenter, and fail to see Jesus, the Son of God that has come down from heaven. Hence, they end up dissatisfied, still hungry, and murmuring (v. 42).

To this people Jesus explains, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (v. 44). Here lies the secret of our friendship with God. God always does the initiative. We do not find God by ourselves and love him. Rather, He draws us to himself and we allow ourselves to be led. God loves us first and we embrace him as our loving response to his initiative. In our friendship with the Lord, we are not driven; we are drawn.

Discernment then becomes essential in a relationship that is not driven but drawn. For us not to be driven by our own impulses and by external forces that oblige us, we need to be discerning. We need to hear, see, and understand the invitation of God for us. As Jesus asserts in the gospel: “Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me” (v. 45).

Discernment is seeing the goodness of God in our life and hence being attracted to Him. The psalm exclaims, “Taste and see how good the Lord is” (Ps 34: 9). The invitation then is to let God draw us to himself by participating in his goodness as we experience and discern it in life.

In life, am I driven or drawn?

When I go through life, do I blindly follow my own impulses and move from one concern to another depending on what is driving me? Am I always on the go beating deadlines I set for myself, driven by my need to succeed and to be affirmed? Do I measure the meaning of my life and work by accomplishments and expected results?

Or do I allow God to lead me where He wants me to go? Am I confident in what I do because, in my discernment, I felt God has drawn me into it? Is my life a grateful response to the goodness of God?

A driven person may have the likelihood of success in this world. More money, more power, more fame. A drawn person may not be able to display this glamour. But the fundamental difference is that the driven person, after all what he has gained, may still end up with a big void that no amount of worldly success can fill up. He may be like the people in Jesus’ time, dissatisfied, still hungry, and murmuring! On the other hand, the person who has allowed himself to be drawn by God is certainly fulfilled, satisfied, blissfully contented in life. After all, every moment for him has been that of tasting and seeing the goodness of God.

Be Quiet! Know That I Am God! (4th Sunday Ordinary B)

I think I was ordained to the diaconate twice!  

In November of 1998, together with my batch, except for one Benedictine monk who had a separate venue and schedule of ordination, I submitted myself willingly to the Order of Diaconate held at St. Augustine Cathedral in the Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro.  After all the busy preparations and the heady day of ordination which, of course, included the inevitable and exhausting socialization at the reception, what I felt was the feeling of great relief that everything went well and I was already a deacon. I thought that was all that mattered.

After some time, the batch was invited to attend the ordination of the monk at the Transfiguration Chapel of the Benedictines in Malaybalay.  I was there awed by the silence of the surroundings and the chapel.  Few people were invited. Hence, the liturgy turned out to be enviably solemn.  During the rite, I was washed with a deep sense of tranquillity with my mind and heart freed from the disturbing noise of anxieties that had preoccupied me for the most part of my own ordination.  As the ordination rite went on, my tears were flowing like a stream because, in that deep state of silence that I found myself in, I felt I was being ordained a second time.  And this time, my whole being participated!

Few people have discovered the eloquence of silence.  Most people live and mastered the art of thriving in the noise of anxieties, charting their way to success through the multi-layered pile of tasks, important concerns, and, no doubt, noble responsibilities.  For these people addicted to productive activities, silence is strange.  Silence is unbearably a waste of their precious time.

In today’s gospel (Mk. 1: 21-28), Jesus commanded the man with an unclean spirit to be quiet: “Quiet!  Come out of him!”  Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit this way because he was ranting and raving as Jesus was teaching with authority in the synagogue.  The man with an unclean spirit was resisting Jesus’ authority as he cried out “What have you to do with us...? Have you come to destroy us?  I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” 

Such is the noise of resistance to God’s authority.  Like the evil spirit, all too often we find ourselves declaring our autonomy from external authorities like God’s. “What have you to do with us?” We say even unknowingly. We are afraid that God might ask us to change and “destroy” our own grand plans in life. We acknowledge his Holiness but we do not trust God enough to allow him to be the God of our lives!  Hence, we keep on ranting, filling our hearts with the noise of resistance.  No wonder, many times we are afraid to be silent. We do not want to admit Him into our lives.

Today we listen to the Lord as He commands us with authority, “Be quiet!”  Only in that deep state of silence can God speak into our hearts.  I propose the following invitations to silence:

The silence of emptiness.  Cluttered with all our worldly concerns and anxieties, our minds and hearts have no room to offer for God.  We need to de-clutter.  We need to give space for God’s Word to penetrate our hearts.  Silence is an invitation to emptiness.  To be truly silent is to be empty in such a way that our only yearning is to be graciously filled up with the sense of being loved by God. 

The silence of powerlessness.  Satan’s bad habit is to perpetually resist the authority of God.  Satan wants to wield power and to be his own God.  We do feel this evil tendency in us very strongly.  We want to be “the captain of our souls.”  We want to be the ones taking hold of the helm of our fate.  We have to admit, we can be control freaks.  We seem to be disoriented and lost when we are not in control. That is why we resist God’s directions.  We cannot let go. Silence is the courage to be powerless in the face of God. Silence is letting go of our control and being docile to God’s command, “Be quiet! Come out!”  Hence, silence is an invitation for us to give up our futile resistance and let God be the God of our lives.

The silence of peace and harmony.  This is the experience of tranquillity after we have been purged of the “unclean spirit.”  This is the peace that sets in after the convulsions of our defiance.  We seek harmony in life.  We can only attain it by making silence an integral part of our busy lives. We can have peace and harmony when we have replaced our bad habit of harbouring anxieties and resistance in our hearts with the powerful habit of incorporating into our practical lives the eloquent power of silence.  The silence of harmony is like the silences in between the notes of a great musical composition. All those notes fail to form a harmonious melody when they are not woven together by the silences that connect them all. So are the endless concerns in our lives.

In a retreat house I’ve visited, a poster hangs on a wall.  And as if to remind every guest that he stands in a haven of silence, it has this to say: BE QUIET AND BE STILL. KNOW THAT I AM GOD!