DISCIPLESHIP, HOLINESS, AND THE CROSS Presented by Deacon Joseph DeLeon 16th Annual Cursillo National Encounter Villanova University - July 21, 2006 The Lord be with you. Our Lord Jesus Christ said to his apostles, "I give you peace, my peace I give you." Let us share with each other a sign of God's Peace. Before I begin my talk I'd like to ask a favor of all of you. Two days ago I was called to minister to a parishioner of the parish where I serve who is in a coma and dying of cancer of the mouth and throat. I'd like to ask all of you to say just one little prayer for Leon and Diane Gracely; I promised them that I would bring this petition before you this weekend and I'd like to dedicate this message that God is bringing to you through me, to them. I'd like to begin my talk with a little story. Let me take you back to when you were nine years old. For some of you that wasn't that far back. For others of us - well, let's just leave it at that. This is the story of a nine-year-old little boy who is sitting at his desk in school, and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. "Oh, no," he thinks, his heart going like a trip hammer, "This cannot be happening!" Nothing like this had ever happened before, and he knew immediately that once the boys found out he would never hear the end of it. And if the girls found out, well, they would never speak to him again as long as he lived. This kid believes his heart is going to stop, so he puts his head down and prays; probably the most important prayer of his young life. And he says: "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! As soon as he finishes he looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. Now as the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a gold fish bowl that is filled with water. Suddenly, little Susie trips right in front of the teacher -- and dumps the whole bowl of water in the boy's lap! Our little friend reacts with shock and then pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, "Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!" Everything changes immediately. Instead of being the object of ridicule, our little buddy is suddenly the object of everyone's sympathy. Even the teacher makes a big fuss over him and tells him not to worry and then takes him downstairs where she gives him some gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. Meanwhile all of the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie. She tries to help, but the kids tell her to get out. "You've done enough, you klutz!" they yell at her. That afternoon, at the end of this very interesting and exciting day, our little friend and Suzie are waiting for the bus. A little sheepishly, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" And Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too." I have been asked to speak about the relationship between the master and disciple; or more precisely -- what it means to be a disciple of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. I've been asked to talk about what it means to be servant. I can sum it all up in two words: be holy. Or better yet, as our Lord tells us: "Be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect." Well that's it. Thank you all very much for coming, I hope that you all have a nice trip back, and may God bless all of you. Now I know what all of you are thinking - how can I be holy? Only God is holy. How can I be perfect? I'm only human. Now it is true that only God is holy - but, my sisters and brothers, it is also true that every one of us can have a share in God's Holiness. How do we share in this holiness of God's? Who can we share in this way of being which is not only God's criteria for entry into heaven, but also something which God has mandated: 'Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. (Leviticus) Fortunately for us, there are a few human beings who can teach us how to be holy, who can show us the way to be holy, because they themselves have come to embody holiness in a very exemplary way. And it is to them that we now turn to learn how to become holy. I am speaking, of course, about the saints. The saints are the very essence of what it means to be humanly holy and they have become holy because of their life of witness. So, how did the saints came to be such wonderful models of holiness? Where did they learn to lead such lives of Christian virtues and charity? What was it about them that has set them apart in their dealings with others and with the world in general? It was their encounter with the Source of Holiness - our Lord Jesus Christ. It was their encounter with the very same Jesus Christ who is at the root of all holiness and who, by virtue of his life, Passion, death and resurrection, drew the saints to himself and caused them to change their lives forever. But how can we, then, who are not saints - at least not anyway, because remember, St. John of the Cross tells us that our destiny is to become saints - how can we experience the very same Jesus, this wonderful source of Holiness - in a way that we, too, can be changed in the very same way that the saints were - and thereby fulfill our destiny and become as holy as our Father in Heaven is holy? What is the Method for living life in such a way that it will enable us to properly fulfill the vows that we made at our own Cursillo experience? What is this Way of Life that will also draw others into the sphere of the Church so that they too can then be guided to have their own encounter with the Source of Holiness himself. The only way we can experience this Source so that we can ultimately become holy, is through what Hans Urs Von Balthasar called Nachfolge, which is German for "to follow after." And that, my sisters and brothers, is the true meaning of discipleship. To become truly holy - to be truly in contact with God - we must first have a personal encounter with Jesus -- who is God become human. And in this encounter, with THE source of holiness, we must make the commitment to follow him. Now following Christ is not necessarily the same as imitating Jesus. Would you mind raising your hand if you've recently had an opportunity to raise the dead or quiet storms? Have about walking on water? Is that you, Victor? If we are really serious about following Christ, it doesn't require something as earth shattering as the examples I quoted above and yet it does require doing something perhaps just as difficult. To follow Christ properly one must first of all acquire a sense of … indifference. What do I mean by this? To follow Christ as true disciples and servants of the Lord, we must learn to stop focusing totally on ourselves. We must learn to free up our egos so as to follow the Will of God In other words, we must learn to cultivate and practice lives of obedience. A life of discipleship begins with the struggle with the most powerful ally of the Evil One - our own sense of importance and our predilection for believing that we know what is best -- not only ourselves - but for everyone else. We are prisoners of our fascination with our "Plan" for our lives and our need for controlling everything to be in perfect relation with it. Want to make God laugh, tell God your plan. We resist being obedient to God's Will because we believe that our will, our plan, our ego - will disappear. And yet, the one condition which Jesus set for perfect discipleship was to leave everything - and follow him. Do you recall the story of the rich young man? And why is this condition so very important - renouncing everything and following Him? Because Salvation had come into the world in human form, and to be in salvation meant to be with Him. So how do we solve this problem of leaving everything and following Jesus - including forgoing our egos? The solution to following Jesus does not mean that we are to imitate Christ, but that we are to represent Christ to others. Seen from this perspective we don't have to worry about having to lose our identities, our precious because, after all we are just re- presenting Christ, we are not re-presenting ourselves - our egos, etc, therefore, can stay intact. St. Ignatius, in his meditation on the Kingdom, explains it this way: the Christian can "represent" the King as a vice-regent (a sort of vice-King) without surrendering anything of his or her personhood. Representation, therefore, offers us the opportunity to present what von Balthasar calls the appearance of divine Glory in the world, without Glory having to destroy the vessel." We, therefore, as servants of the Lord, re-present the Lord, and in doing so, appear to be representing or setting ourselves apart from the Master - while still retaining our own identity. However, and here is where the paradox comes in, the more that we try to set ourselves as individuals apart from Christ - the more we become like Him. Why is this? Well, think about it. If we are to truly re-present Christ to others, we have to have some idea of just who Christ is, and as we do so - as we begin to know more about who and what Christ is. We begin to now want to re-present by representing Christ more perfectly. We can't help it - Perfection demands it. You see, my dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, we begin to want to not just re-present Christ, but to truly and completely represent Christ, because He is the fulfillment of all that we can ever hope to be. And we begin to get it - just like what the Apostles got it when they realized the truth about Christ: "To follow Christ is first and foremost to enter into the path of self-renunciation. A path which takes its most concrete form in the renunciation of one's own will - the path of obedience. To be holy, therefore, is to offer our will as a consecrated sacrifice; a sacrifice which in the perfect Will of the Father, is made perfect. Holiness is therefore achieved by identifying fully with Christ on a daily basis in doing the Will of the Father. And the holiness which flows from this consecration and sacrifice of self in union with Christ becomes our gift for the entire Church. This means that we have to be open to whatever mission God presents us with; a mission which will ultimately come to represent the same path of life, passion, and death as Christ's. In the Resurrection of Jesus, God gave us the proof we needed to understand that everything glorious about Jesus resulted from the fact that "the fruit from the Son's mission was based on the perfect, absolute obedience of the Son." Obedience is therefore, the key to holiness. But we all know just how difficult obedience can be. Jesus knew it. Why do you think he asked the disciple: Can you drink from this cup? He knew how fragile we are - first hand. Christ's sufferings were monumental - after all, he took on all of the sins of the world. Fortunately, we are not called to achieve such heights of glory, but we are called, nonetheless, to pursue our tasks with the same passion, the same sense of humility, and the same level of commitment -- a total giving of self. My beloved sisters and brothers, can you drink of this cup? You know what cup I'm talking about. Each and every one of us faces drinking from a cup today - a cup that will cause pain and suffering, problems and consternation, a cup that will demand of you sometimes more than you think you can give. Can you drink from your cup? Can we do this - especially since we do not fully share in the divine nature? The answer is yes, because Mary showed us how. In Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, he tells us about the gift of suffering - God gave him a thorn at his side - God made him a Republican. Just kidding. God gave him a thorn and Paul rejoices in it, saying "For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." Suffering, especially when we talk about discipleship and our relationship to the master, is unavoidable. And why is this: because Christ went to the Cross. I'd like to tell you a story about a person who I knew who also went to the Cross, and also changed the lives of many. Before my walk with the Lord began I was given a unique task in which to serve the Lord. A task that to me at that time was bizarre and very difficult. I was asked to develop a series of radio commercials to promote - of all things - vocations for the priesthood. I was a non-believer at that time and so in order to gain some insight as to why a healthy, intelligent, personable, relatively good-looking, and highly educated young man would choose a career where he had to give up (a) economic success, (b) all of the usual male toys: cars, clothes, stereo, expensive jewelry, and (c) the real clincher - women! In the course of my research I chanced to meet with a number of young priests and also a very remarkable young novitiate. This young lady, who was still working on her vows, happened to be not only highly competent in media production, but was also very beautiful. I later found out that her religious order had reassigned this very capable and creative person and instead of pursuing her dreams of doing media production work, she was sent back to school to work on a master's degree in accounting. It seems that many of her sister nuns were becoming quite aged and there was no one young enough to study and become expert in the organizational and business skills the order needed to survive and care for increasingly growing number of sick and elderly sisters. So she had been chosen. I caught up with her about ten years later and was eager to meet with her to talk about my new life with Christ and so we agreed to meet on evening. I remember looking forward to seeing her again and so when I arrived at the apartment that she shared with some of her fellow religious, I was somewhat taken aback when she opened the door. She had changed. She was very kind and polite and did not say much about my initial reaction, but I could tell that she realized that I had had a bit of a shock. She had aged and not very gracefully; she looked matronly and had put on weight. But it was her face that showed the clearest ravages of her time spent doing what was obviously not her first love. She was no longer young or beautiful. Her once flowing chestnut tresses now lay like a shorn cap upon her head. She was no longer lively or exciting - but quiet and subdued. I told her how glad I was to see her, to make small talk and we took a small stroll into the atrium in the building. I began to tell her of my new life in Jesus and she just sat and smiled and listened. And while I was talking I kept thinking to myself as I studied her, "What happened to her?" But I did not dare ask her because I did not want to hurt her feelings. Yet, I had to say something, because the question lay like a dead weight at our feet. So I finally got up the courage and said to her, "You used to be as young as springtime," and my words just hung in the air. Turning her face, she began to cry, and I felt just awful - I had made this poor young woman cry with my insensitivity and callous statement. I, who was trying to follow Christ and working to love and serve others, had insulted this rare human being who had sacrificed so much and was truly a disciple of the Lord by virtue of her selflessness. But when she turned her face to me I somehow realized that they were not tears of pain, but instead tears of joy - and then she told me something that changed my life completely. She said, to me, "Thank you for seeing the marks of my Savior upon me." I suppose that I could end this story now - on this significantly remarkable insight. But there is more. Do you remember the story of Jesus and his raising of Lazarus? The entire tale is so wonderful because it takes us from the sheer inanity of human thought and contrasts it with the unbelievable loftiness of God's thought. Jesus went to Bethany not to cure someone of an illness; he went there to show the unimaginable power of God's inestimable love - he went there to bring back Lazarus from the dead. And so it was with this young lady. After the faithful fulfillment of her duties to her sister nuns, she left the order to become an executive director in a world-wide organization that provides loans to impoverished women to start their own businesses. Through the combination of her significant business acumen and the creative power of her imagination, this young woman has become a most formidable tool for the Lord in helping hundreds of single and married women: mothers, aunts, mothers-in-law, grandmothers, sisters, and cousins, find and fulfill their own dreams of helping their families, neighborhood, community, cities, and nations, survive, thrive, and advance. The Lord does work in mysterious ways, and surely God's Thoughts and Ways are way above our own. Thank God. And thank God for allowing me to witness to you this story of a young woman who, in her own life, shows us how suffering can truly be redemptive. Our Lord suffered so that a wounded, broken, and suffering humanity could be lifted into the suffering form of Christ, who is God, to be redeemed. This is why Christian saints find their center in Christ's Passion. Their contemplation on His Passion is one that led them to "order their lives according to this insight." Their readiness to do the will of the Father took first priority in their lives and transformed any ideas they might have had about a personal experience with Christ. They knew the Lord, because they had suffered with, and for, the Lord. They learned that the personal experience of every Christian is to be conformed to the Cross, and to the Resurrection of Christ. They learned to give of their all for the sake of others, because this is what God did. Christ's death on the Cross, for us, is the point "on which all of Christian theology depends." Christ took our place, represented us, and, His death in obedience took away the disobedience of Adam. Can we drink from this cup - can we take part in Christ's redemptive suffering? Can we, in our own journey of discipleship and obedience, take part in "sharing" in Christ's death, and thus take part in sharing in God's holiness? We can, and the journey begins through our own death -- of the self, of the ego - on our own crosses. And we do it as Church. Mary, our Mother, shows us how we who are the Church are able to truly take part in the suffering of Jesus on the Cross, for it was at the foot of the Cross, that Mary, herself preserved from sin by the sacrifice of the Cross, represented the Church, the Communion of Saints. As Christ took the place of all human beings on the Cross, then Mary representing the Church "took their place" as well. As Von Balthasar says, "No one, not even Mary, can actively save himself, and yet. 'It is not impossible that Jesus gives those saved by Him the possibility of having a share in His power." And how do we this? Surely, as Cursillistas we know the answer to this already. We do it by placing ourselves at God's disposal for others: through intercessory prayer, in suffering for, and in being-for, others. We do it through palanca. In this way, we who are in the communion of saints, those who are saved in Christ, do have a share in the saving work of Christ, by giving of ourselves, of our lives, as Christ did, for others. Those of us who truly desire to follow in the footsteps of Christ are therefore, necessarily obliged to continue the work of substitution as a fundamental ethical act. The silent suffering at Calvary, both on the part of the Crucified and the Church gathered at the foot of the Cross is a Way of being-with to which all Christians are called. In the end, then, true discipleship which leads to Christian holiness requires us to share in the suffering of Christ, for others. A suffering which is also a great joy because we love and serve a God who loves us so much that God allows us, the human sinners, who are ourselves saved by the Cross of Christ, to take part in this redemptive suffering. We, who are among those who are "not worthy to even tie his sandal strap", have surely been given the highest privilege - and possibly the greatest test of faith - imaginable. I suspect, however, that all Cursillistas who have seen the light of understanding come into the eyes of those they've served in Cursillos know this and have come to appreciate that while the encounter with Christ is always one on one, the work of salvation also takes place within the communion of saints. De colores.