Neighborliness
Who Is My Neighbor?
Very often a neighbor is regarded as one who lives next door, or in the same block, or in an adjoining apartment.
Once Our Lord was asked by a lawyer, "Who is my neighbor?" Our Blessed Lord answered by telling him a parable: There was a man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among thieves, was stripped of his garments, wounded and left half dead. The road that leads down from Jerusalem to Jericho covers a distance of twenty-one miles and it was known, because of its dark deeds, as "the way of blood."
Our Lord told how the priest and the Levite passed by—a proof of the degenerate state into which religion had fallen. Perhaps, in modern language, they went down to Jericho to report to some philanthropic association that a man was wounded on the road midway between Jerusalem and Jericho.
A Samaritan, who was of another race, bound up the wounds of the injured man, poured in oil and wine, set him on his beast and brought him to an inn. He paid the innkeeper and promised to return again to pay for additional expenses.
When Our Blessed Lord asked the lawyer who was the neighbor, he would not say the Samaritan, because he was not permitted to say the word. He merely answered that the neighbor was "he that showed mercy." Our Blessed Lord then told him to go and do likewise.
Our Lord made neighborhood coextensive with humanity. Any human being is a neighbor who needs aid or to whom one can render aid. A neighbor is not one bound by the same race, nor is he the one close to us. He may be the one farthest away; he could even be an enemy.
Very often misery is unrelieved because it is not clamorous. When we hear of great numbers of people lying half dead on the roadside, the very magnitude of their need is apt to make us feel that we can do little and, therefore, might be excused from doing anything.
Some French people in a small village decided to honor a doctor who had served them for fifty years. A large vat was placed in the village square and everyone was asked to bring in a little wine. The plan was to give the whole vat, when filled, to the doctor. Each person said to himself, "The little that I give will amount to nothing." So each one brought a little water and poured it into the vat. In the end, the doctor had nothing.
We are to make use of things—our possessions, our talents—as kinds of sacraments, each one of which has pronounced over it the consecrating words: "This is offered on account of You, O Lord!" Thus the whole universe can become sacramentalized for His honor and glory. Even those in the dim borderland of acquaintance—the chance passerby on the road, the one whom we have never seen before—all possess a quality that identifies them even with another Traveler who one day sat tired at Jacob's well: "For what you have done to the least of these, My brethren, you have done unto Me."
Two Sides Of Sympathy
What has happened to that double side of sympathy which is the basis of the Christian philosophy of life: "Rejoice with them who rejoice, and weep with them who weep"? It has been said that the wounded deer sheds tears, but it belongs only to man to weep with those who weep and by sympathy to divide another's sorrows and double another's joys.
In a nation, bad blood arises immediately when others are indifferent to our misfortunes. Nothing so spoils a people as a spirit which makes each say, "I am I and you are you, and that's the end of it." Rather, as the poet has said:
We, are we not formed, as notes of music are
For one another though dissimilar?
Of the two kinds of sympathy, it seems easier to show sympathy with people in trouble than to rejoice with happy folk. In Shakespeare's As You Like It, there is a description of two brothers, each in love with his chosen mistress. One succeeds in his courtship, whereupon the other exclaims, "How bitter it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"
Furthermore, it seems to be easier to do one of these than to do both together. Some are more sensitive to pain in others, and others are more sensitive to joy in others. It could be that, feeling the need of sympathy ourselves, we play a sympathetic tune on the keyboard of another; but why, it might be asked, since we all wish joy, not share in another's joy?
It has been said that it becomes easier to do both as we grow older. One of the heroes of Homer sang:
Taught by time, my heart has learned, to glow
For others' good and weep at others' woe.
Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double. Two torches do not divide, but increase the flame. Tears are more quickly dried up when they run on a friend's cheek in furrows of compassion.
How beautifully both these sympathies were revealed in the character of Our Blessed Lord when He saw the leper, the widow of Nairn, the blind man by the wayside, the hungry multitudes distressed "as sheep without a shepherd." He touched the leper; He dried the tears of the widow; He was hungry with the hungry and He fed them. He suffered with their suffering. One day a publican made a great feast in his house. Our Lord sat down with His disciples, saying that while the Bridegroom was with them, they should all rejoice. He also entered sympathetically into the joys of the marriage feast of Cana, making better wine even when the poor wine had been drained.
Few there are who can carry this sympathy to a point of forgiveness as Our Lord did from the Gross; as St. Thomas More, Chancellor of England, did when he gave a blessing to his persecutors. Just before being killed, he was asked if he had anything to say. His answer was, "My lords, I have but to say that as the blessed Apostle St. Paul was present at the death of the martyr, Stephen, keeping the clothes of those who stoned him, and yet they be now saints in Heaven, and there shall continue to be friends forever, so I trust and shall, therefore, pray, that though your lordships have been on earth my judges, yet we may hereafter meet in Heaven together to our everlasting salvation: and God preserve you all, especially our sovereign lord, the king, and grant him faithful counsellors."
Politeness
Politeness is passing out of the world. Some never think of it as being anything else than offering a seat to a lady when one gets off the bus. Not very long ago, a man arose from the subway and offered the vacated seat to a lady. She fainted in surprise. When she recovered and sat down, she thanked the man, and he fainted.
Taking account of American hurry and rush, someone has defined courtesy as a form of polite behavior practiced by civilized people when they have time. In the last century, when there was much talk about a gentleman, someone defined a gentleman as the "devil's imitation of a Christian."
That brings up the question: What is, according to Scripture, the essence of a Christian gentleman? There are two tests which are given.
One is: "Be patient in bearing with one another's fault as charity bids." This means a restraining of displeasure against annoyance or insult, or the power of bearing up under offenses. It sometimes requires great moral and spiritual strength to overcome the desire for retaliation which is in the natural man. To be a Christian gentleman who follows the example of Christ, who, when He was reviled, reviled not again, and when He suffered, threatened not, is indeed difficult. Stoicism ignores the faults of others, but the Christian gentleman is directed to forgive them by loving.
The other test of the gentleman is in following the counsel of Our Blessed Lord, to go and sit in the lowest place, and not the highest. There is always false ambition when a man aims at a place rather than merit. A well-known modern French novelist, writing about her relations with another well-known character, often writes this sentence: "I got the corner seat," or "we got the corner seats." Dozens of toes were probably trampled upon because here there was vanity and self-seeking. It can generally be found that this false ambition is due not to the fact that they are truly great, but rather that they are small and have not learned to manage themselves.
The gentleman is the one who is modest and retiring, who waits first on the others and thinks of everyone but himself, and finds his chief happiness in making someone else happy; who, however poor and humble anyone else may be, bears to them the open palm of true nobility.
In the story of the Gospel feast, it was the man who sought the higher place who was sent to the lower, and then one who took the lower place who was sent up higher. In the world, there is push and rush; in the audits of Heaven, the emptying of the ego is a condition of admittance of God's action within the soul.
It would, of course, be quite wrong to say that we should appear humble. One often hears speakers at banquets, when they are given some cup, or diploma, or degree, or praise, answer, "I am very humble, but proud"—without ever thinking of how they could be both at the same time. Humility is like underwear: we have to have it, but we should never show it. Pride is what we think ourselves to be; humility is the truth we know about ourselves, not in the eyes of our neighbor, but in the Eyes of God. As Chesterton put it, "There is no such thing as being a gentleman at important moments; it is at unimportant moments that a man is a gentleman. . . . If once his mind is possessed in any strong degree with the knowledge that he is a gentleman, he will soon cease to he one."
Honesty
Abraham Lincoln once said, "If, in your judgment, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer."
It has often been said, "Honesty is the best policy," on the grounds that it will keep you out of trouble and make you admired. Someone has remarked concerning it, "He who acts upon this principle is not an honest man," It would seem, however, that there is some decline in honesty, for there is now one major crime committed in the United States for every sixty persons. In the last ten years, the crime rate in the United States has been exploding at a rate four times as fast as the rate of the growth of our population.
The justification for cutting corners, taking bribes and other forms of dishonesty is twofold. First is, "Everybody's doing it." The assumption here is that right and wrong are questions merely of mob judgment, rather than of standards. It forgets that right is right if nobody is right, and wrong is wrong if everybody is wrong. A second justification is, "My conscience is clear." What conscience is not clear if it makes its own standards? What note on a piano is wrong if the musician who strikes it declares it to be the right note? If a conscience decides that eighteen inches will be a yard, who shall prove him wrong? The atheistic Khrushchev, with all the crimes of the Ukraine on his back, has said, "God knows I do right."
Every act of dishonesty disturbs the balance of justice and, therefore, demands restitution. The old law of Moses on stealing was, "If he is found guilty, he must make restitution, giving back in full all that he hoped to gain by his knavery, and a fifth part beside, to the owner whom he has wronged."
Zaccheus was a public servant of the Romans, a tax gatherer who paid a large sum for his office. Part of the taxes he would give to the Romans, but he pocketed all he collected over the amount due them. Unless his exactions were too ruinous, there was little fear of exposure. But one day he was checked in his dishonesty, not by having it exposed in the press of the times, nor by having the prosecuting attorney of the Romans bring him to halt. He was "arrested" by the moral stringency of Our Divine Lord, Whose awful eyes pierced his soul and made him seek not only pardon, but also render restitution. Standing upright, he said, "Lord, here and now I give half of what I have to the poor; if I have wronged anyone in any way, I make restitution of it fourfold."
We once received a plain, brown envelope in which there was stuffed $4,600 in bills, and to which was attached an anonymous note to the effect that the sender was making reparation for his dishonesty to an insurance company, the name and address of which was given. We sent the money to the insurance company and told them of the unjust claim that had been made against them, but the name of the one who had made the restitution remained unknown. Regardless of how much one may have taken, and regardless of how secretly it may have been done, and regardless of how one may have justified it in his own false conscience, the Divine words still stand: "Believe Me, thou shalt not be set at liberty until thou has paid the last farthing."
Success And Failure
A spoiled life may sometimes be a spur; a successful life may sometimes be a drag. Success is never a success when measured wholly in terms of dollars. Life is a becoming, rather than a having; a goal in front, and not an achievement. The poet has said, "Beware of the man of one book," for he is always talking about it, instead of proceeding to write another.
Those who boast of their success are not successful, and those who pride themselves on their perfection are not saints. From this, there follow two psychological observations.
First, it will generally be found true that those who boast of their success in terms of money hardly ever help the poor. It is not that they are not generous, but that they are generous only to the rich. The haves are helped by those who have; it is the have-nots who help the have-nots. An institution worth half a billion dollars can easily get endowments and have drives for a hundred million dollars, but the ten million lepers in the world are lucky if they draw three hundred thousand dollars a year from pockets —but not from the same pockets. What is the reason for this? It is partly because the rich measure their own lives in terms of success, and so they think that only those causes should be helped which are also successful. Furthermore, always having had the "breaks" and good fortune, they are incapable of understanding the want and the misery of others. That is why the poor are more generous to the poor—because they know hunger, they give the little bread they have.
This brings us to the other psychological law governing perfection: the pharisaically perfect who have not known human weakness are often less sympathetic and less helpful to the fallen than those who, with the grace of God, have picked themselves up from the mire. It was the Pharisee who sneered at the Lord when the adulteress woman came to pour ointment on His feet. He could not understand why Perfection did not pick up His robes from such filth. St. Augustine, who was a great sinner, was a more understanding theologian of the grace and mercy of God than St. Thomas, who had so few human weaknesses. Parents who boast of their moral uprightness can rarely sympathize with the weakness of their children; they too often make virtue repulsive instead of attractive. The description of Christ in the Bible is the ideal: "We have not a High Priest Who cannot have compassion on our frailties and weakness, for He was tempted in all things as we are, but without sin." True innocence is compassionate.
It is interesting to note the difference between missionaries and spoiled modern youths who have had everything. The first have been through every conceivable kind of trial—prison, torture, death marches and hunger—and yet they are the happiest men who ever lived. Never does one hear them say a harsh word against their Communist jailers. They hate Communism, but they love the Communists simply because they are human. The overprivileged youths, on the contrary, are often bored, jaded, sour at life, and bent on destruction because they have destroyed their own inner image of the Divine. The professor of moral theology and of canon law will generally be found to be less sympathetic to human weakness than the priest or minister or rabbi who works in the slums, or with delinquents, and certainly less merciful than the one who is truly saintly, for he above all knows how weak he is.
Those who are patient under trial are those who are most capable of consoling others; those who are rebellious under crosses can never bring comfort to the afflicted. The sinless people who are boastful of their goodness are always harsh, and sinful people who remain in their sin are often indifferent to goodness and justice. But those who are dissatisfied with their goodness, and strive to perfect the Divine Image within, are always sympathetic and compassionate. A successful life can be a spoiled life if it is summed up in "I made millions." A spoiled life, on the contrary, need not be a hopeless life. Failures if properly accepted can lead to true success. Abraham Lincoln was defeated for every public office until he was elected President. Einstein was expelled from a school in Munich because he showed no interest in his studies and later failed to pass his test for a polytechnic school. A cross seen as the Will of God leads to an Easter Sunday.
My Brother's Keeper
The first recorded question that man hurled back into the Face of God was, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Cain had brought the first death into the world by killing Abel. God, seeking to arouse his conscience, asked, "Where is thy brother Abel?" His conscience was already dead, but he tried to escape the guilt by taxing God with making an unreasonable inquiry. Hence the retort, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
How God spoke we know not, except that He accommodated Himself to the conscience of Cain. What now becomes interesting is that having failed to induce Cain to acknowledge his guilt, God looked elsewhere for evidence to convict him.
Cain had already put himself in the position of those today who deny that there is any such thing as guilt or sin. The great novelist Dostoevski foretold of this condition which would come to pass in the modern world, saying, "A time will come when men will say there is no sin, there is no crime, there is no guilt. There is only hunger. And men will come to our feet crying and imploring: 'Give us bread."'
In this state of denial of personal guilt and responsibility, Cain was at the same time denying that he had any responsibility to society. There seems to be an intrinsic bond between man's denial of personal moral failure and his repudiation of involvement with the ills and woes of others.
Dostoevski, again stressing the contrary view, says, "Think of yourself as being responsible for the sins of your fellowmen, and you will see how quickly you will want to relieve their burdens."
Following the marvelous psychological insights in the story, God answers the question of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?" by retorting, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto Me from the ground." Even though Cain refused to hear the whisper of conscience or, better, the questioning voice of God, inanimate nature itself protested. Nature is on God's side, not on man's side.
Something of this mystery is hidden in the prophecy of Our Lord to Peter, that there would be a link between Peter's denial of Him and the crowing of a cock. In the absence of accusation from our fellow beings, all visible creation—sun, moon, stars, forest, water—seems to grow vocal to publish our crime. It is likely that the very branches of the tree on which Judas hanged himself seemed to him like pointing fingers. Thompson's words concerning nature were, "Traitorous trueness, loyal deceit. In fickleness to me and in loyalty to Him." When the dialogue which conscience holds with the guilty is rejected, the universe itself becomes a mirror, holding crime up for all to see.
Could it be that because a man has evolved out of the dust into which God breathed an immortal soul, then the wrong that is done echoes and reverberates throughout the vast realm of nature? In any case, there is a sympathy between the moral order and the physical, between conscience and the human body, between the moral and the somatic. Could not one translate nature's declaring Cain's sin into modern psychological terms? How often those who are morally guilty and who deny their guilt might hear God's voice in new ways saying, "The voice of thy sins cried up to Me from your psychosis, your neurosis and your dreams. The guilt that you deny is not effaced; it is merely submerged. And though thou permittest Me not to read it in conscience, I read it in thy nerves, in thy complexes, in the very ground of thy being."
Perhaps Cain had concealed beneath the sod the blood of his brother and, with the greatest attention, removed every visible trace to the superficial examiner of his foul deed. He had learned that the things which he thought dumb could raise their voices to the ear of Omnipotence, and that the blood of a brother which he shed could rise vocal with words of prayer. Many a misdeed in theft and adultery, buried under the sod of the conscious mind, has its voice too. Every psychic disturbance which is the result of thumbing one's nose against the moral order also has its voice. It is not the ground today but the mental ills which cry up to Heaven. Nature confirms and illustrates in every particular the unconfessed and the unpardoned guilt which has its record in the body and in the mind, and crieth up to Heaven from that ground "with crimson clouds before their eyes and flames about their brain."
The Strong And The Weak
If one plants a rose tree in the shadow of an oleander, the oleander will fatten on the life of the rose tree, which eventually dies from what has been taken away from it. The weak succumbs to the strong. The grip of the vine is on all the feeble plants of the field. Wolves often rend in pieces a wounded member of their pack. The lion devours the lamb and grows stronger by absorbing the strength of the vanquished. Written across the law of nature is "the survival of the fittest." Even in the international order, weaker nations have succumbed one by one— devoured by the stronger.
But there is another law that is not in nature, at least not in raw nature, namely, "We who are strong should bear the infirmities of the weak and not please ourselves." It is here that Christianity makes its most unique and distinctive pronouncement, and gives the supreme example of Divinity dying for the weakness and sinfulness of humanity. The Christian law is not "the survival of the fittest" but "the survival of the unfit."
The inspiration for this is He Who emptied Himself of Heaven's wealth that through His poverty we might be made rich. The challenge was uttered to the Cross: "Come down and we will believe." But He did not come down. If He had come down, He would have been strong. He stayed there. He would die for the weak. Through that act of self-denial, the unfit lived.
All during His Life, love went out to those who were not only weak, but even the worst people, like the woman in the city, the grasping tax collector, the robber on the tree. He saw that a jewel had fallen into the mud and though encrusted with foulness that it was still a jewel.
Strength is apt to please itself. And health is prone to claim immunity from sympathy with pain. But according to this law, the man with eyes must be a staff to those who are blind. Virtuous innocence never claims immunity from the guilt of others. That is why an innocent woman was found at the foot of the Cross. The truest sympathy is found in those who, with strength of love, come out of the sunshine into the gloom and dimness of others, to touch wounds tenderly, as though their own nerves throbbed with pain.
The burden is on the strong. The fit must minister to the unfit; the rich must aid the poor. The blind man who tramples our flowers is not to be the object of toleration; rather, the loss of his sight must be felt by us as a personal loss. How often today writers and novelists take on the air of supporting the weak, the poor and the disinherited, but how few ever give any of their royalties to assist those whose misery made their fortune. The slum owner is often brought before the law for making money on hovels, but does the novelist who made a fortune on slums ever share his reward with them? Really, only they who themselves have suffered are the strong who help the weak.
Hugo Bassi tries to lift others to that insight in his lines:
Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth;
For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice;
And who so suffers most hath most to give.
Judging Others
Human nature is something like a child's top painted in the variegated colors of the rainbow. When the top is at rest, each single color and tint can be distinguished, the red on one side, blue on another, white on the top, green on the bottom. When the top is set in motion and made to spin, darkness is suffused with brightness, brightness is mixed with darkness, the colors melt into a confused gray until at last one knows not what hues it be.
Judging our fellow men is as perplexing as the perceiving of colors on a spinning top. When a man is at rest, or in a fixed state, such as playing a game or working at a lathe, we think we can very well judge his character. But when we see him in the whirl and motion of everyday life, with its incessant change of pace, its rapid flash from one occupation or duty to another, all his goodness and badness blur into indistinctness. There is so much goodness at one moment, badness at another, sin in one instance, virtue in another, sobriety at one post, excess in another, that it is well to leave the judgment to God and to give the most charitable interpretation one can.
As Robert Bums wrote, begging that there be not severe judgment of his fellow man:
Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
Our Blessed Lord gave us one standard by which others may be judged; it was not a positive, but a negative one. "Judge not, and you shall not be judged. As you have judged, so you will be judged by the rule; award shall be made you as you have made award in the same measure."
The way we judge others is very often the judgment which we pronounce upon ourselves. Whenever you find anyone who is hateful, censorious and bitter against those who lead religious lives, inquire not into his intellectual background; rather investigate his behavior. Those who condemned severely the woman in the Gospel and used her as a test case of the Mercy of Our Lord were themselves guilty of adultery. In all judgments, it is never so important to inquire what is said, but why it is said. Every dramatist, scriptwriter, novelist and essayist who attacks the moral law has already lived against it in his own life. These men may not know it, but in their writings they are penning their own autobiographies. Those who satirize decency, who pour vitriolic acid on family life, who excuse militant atheism, are in the language of a poet "but a clod of warmer dust mixed with cunning sparks from hell."
Nero thought no person chaste because he was so unchaste himself. On the other hand, it will be found that those who are the most religious are those who are the least censorious. A legend has it that one day an ambassador of God severely reprimanded a penitent. The former heard coming from the Crucifix the words, "I died for his sins, not you." It will invariably be found true that those who have suffered and who are saintly are always the most merciful to others. Not to be forgotten also are those who have received mercy and forgiveness themselves. One wonders if Saint Augustine was not one of the kindest and most compassionate of men, having been so tenderly touched by mercy after his sinful life.
Adelaide Ann Proctor, pleading for sympathetic understanding of souls that have fallen, writes:
The fall thou darest to despise—
May he the angel's slackened hand
Has suffered it, that he may rise
And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings.
Understanding Others
The Good Samaritan has stood for centuries as the supreme example of one who had compassion on his fellow man. The word itself means "to suffer with" the afflicted, the poor, the hungry and the thirsty.
The new compassion that has crept into our courts and into our literature and drama is the compassion for the breakers of the law, for the thieves, the dope fiends, the murderers, the rapists. This false compassion for the criminal and the readiness to blame the law and the police, has passed from the "sob-sisters" to black-robed justices who, fearful of restraining a liberty turned into license, pardon the mugger and ignore the mugged.
This miscarriage of justice is found also in the inability of the prosperous to understand the unfortunate. The woes of widows, mothers with delinquent children and cancer patients are often beyond the comprehension of would-be sympathizers. They think that they have sounded all depths and therefore are in a position to judge the merits of the one who is in agony. They have merely skimmed the surface. They do not know what others suffer; neither do they understand God's plan in relationship to them. Looking from sunny homes on the dark abodes of misery, they cannot understand the sorrows they have never tasted. Always having had their wants satisfied, they do not know the meaning of hunger and thirst.
It is part of our fallen nature to despise the trouble we do not understand. Not having the power to drive into the mystery, it seems to us a shallow thing. When the sufferers complain much, we are inclined to think that they are exaggerating or giving way to cowardly weakness, just as the rich are too often ready to regard the very poor as whining imposters. He who has never felt the pangs of conscience looks with contempt upon the penitent's tears. The Pharisees were very unmerciful to sinners, hut a great sinner like Augustine could understand them well. When one is looking for counsel, it is always well to seek out those who themselves have suffered. There is much more wisdom resulting from patient bearing of suffering than there is from books. No sinner is ever consoled by having a moral theology flung at his head. Perhaps the reason why Peter and not John was chosen as the Head of the Church was because he fell and, therefore, understood human weakness. Suffering may be sent to us because we have been too narrow and selfish in our view of it, and also to prepare us for our work in helping others in trouble. The widow can sympathize with the widow; the poor show most kindness to the poor. The experience of the prostration of a great illness enables a person to understand and help sick people. Sorrow can thus become a talent to be used for the good of others by being invested in sympathy.
The principal reason why Christ suffered was to make Him not only our Saviour, but also our Sorrows: "He was a Man of Sorrow and acquainted with grief." Hence the sufferer who is despised by his prosperous brethren can turn with assurance of sympathy to the Saviour of men. Our Lord learned compassion by what He suffered and thereby converted the Cross into a lever for raising a fallen world. Those who receive mercy from Him should show mercy; those who owe all they have to the pity of God, will not be pitiless to their brethren. The Saviour never for a moment tolerates that self-righteous isolation which would make us despise the Prodigal, cavil at his restoration, or cry out with the spirit of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
Passing By
What does the Gospel mean when it says, describing the Risen Lord's appearance at Emmaus, "He made as if to go on further; but they pressed Him"? It means that Our Lord passes us by each day in every opportunity to do good. If we neglect the opportunity. He does not reveal Himself. When the false Christ comes he will say, "I am Christ." But not so with the Divine Christ. He seems to walk by us, trying our dim eyes and weak hands to see if we have faith enough to want Him. He leaves us in darkness if we ask not for the Light. Never does He act independently of our desires for intimate union with Him. He breaks down no doors; the latch is on our side. He stands without the door and knocks.
He has "no place to lay His Head" unless a friendly soul, like the friends at Bethany, give lodging. The innkeeper at Bethlehem missed the opportunity of forever saying of his inn, "Jesus was born here." "I was a stranger and you took Me in," He will say on the Last Day, but He will be only a stranger to those who did not press the invitation.
This same principle of hiding until sought after is evident throughout His life. At Jericho there was a blind man by the name of Bartimaeus who kept crying out, "Jesus, Son of David, have pity on me." The Lord pretended to pass him by, but despite the rebuke even of others in the crowd the blind man cried out more loudly and was cured.
So it was with the woman who came from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon and pleaded that He cure her ailing daughter, who was troubled by an evil spirit. He gave her no word in answer; His disciples came to Him and pleaded with Him. "Rid us of her," they said. But after further testing her faith, He answered her, "Woman, for this great faith of thine, let thy will be granted." And from that hour, her daughter was cured.
Every word that comes to us about the uncomfortable, the homeless, the lepers, is the Son of God passing by. If we let Him pass, He may never be recalled. Graces unused are not often repeated; whispers ignored do not become shouts. All through life, our hands will stretch forth empty of the richest blessings of wisdom and truth unless they are first used to clutch at the sleeve of the Divine Who "makes as if He would pass us by." Emotional responsiveness without practical issue harms the soul. The drama stirs the emotions, but awakens no duties toward the afflicted on the stage. For the moment we may feel we are on the side of the angels. But that is what the Romans called ignis fatuus— the empty fire—the pleasurable glow that consumes no evil and illumines no path.
This item 1427 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
