Some
Thoughts on the Liturgy
LOSING
AND FINDING SELF
+
A number of years ago, a counselor friend of mine was
asking my advice about one of his clients; the client has
given him permission to talk to a priest
-
his client was a young man of 25, well to do, married at
22, divorced at 23
-
tried alcohol early in life more because others were doing
it
-
began to depend on it, and started to mix marijuana with it
-
finally turned to a cocaine habit, developing a dependency
to the drug
-
and at 25, ended up in the psychiatric ward of a Kansas
City hospital because he had tried to kill himself
-
during one of the conferences with my counselor friend, it
came out that he had been brought up in the Roman Catholic
church, and in fact, had entered a seminary after he
graduated from high school, preparing himself for the
Catholic priesthood, and stayed there about two years
-
the therapist’s question to me, and a common enough
question, worded in various ways was—what had happened to
this young man and why didn’t the Church help him in what
he was looking for
-
you can think of other similar questions:
-
why do we have so many mixed up people in the world
-
why is there a necessity for psychiatrists and counselors
(they do good work, not denying that)
-
why are there so many problems with families
-
why are there so many unfulfilled, unhappy people, some of
whom go to Church, even work in ministry, even as
counselors
+
The answer is probably just as complicated as the
individual circumstances of every person
-
but I think that Jesus gives the nucleus of an answer in
today’s Gospel:
Whoever
finds his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for
my
sake
will find it.
-
we have to look at the definition of “finding our lives”
-
you and I are into finding our lives
-
I define it as having it all together, being on top of
everything, being people who know what we want and why we
want it, discovering who we are, feeling good about who we
are—there are various ways of describing it
-
but Jesus says that if we are into that—finding our lives
that way—we will lose them
-
the young man in the counselor’s office desperately
wanted to find his life
-
but something wasn’t working, because he wasn’t finding
his life and instead was losing it, exactly as Jesus said
+
You and I are often in the same situation here—maybe not
to the extent that the young man was
-
but we are all into getting ourselves together, finding our
lives
-
but, and here’s the point for the Christian—
-
as Jesus says, a Christian has to do it in a different way
-
in fact, according to him, two things have to happen:
-
1 – we have to lose our lives
-
what does that mean?
-
Scott Peck in his book The Different Drum calls this
“emptying self”
-
his book is about building community, and he maintains that
in order to build community, every individual in the
community must empty him or herself
-
and in order to empty oneself, this means certain things
-
Peck mentioning specifically:
-
overcoming the desire to make experiences conform to what
we want
-
overcoming prejudices, that is, judging others with no or
very little knowledge
-
conquering the belief that we have all the answers
-
getting rid of the need to fix everything the way we want
-
and conquering the desire to control every situation
-
that is what Jesus means by “losing our lives”
-
2 – we have to lose our lives for Jesus’s
sake
-
it is imperative then that we make Jesus Christ and his
doctrine central to our lives
-
as Jesus says today—more important than family, friends,
work
-
it is the primary relationship, not in a fanatical
religious sense, but in the sense of accepting a set of
principles to live by – that is “living for Jesus’
sake”
-
and immediately we have a fundamental problem—some people
call it the fundamental problem in our lives
-
we don’t want the difficult steps that Jesus
proposes
-
we don’t want to work at the peace, the harmony,
the forgiveness, getting rid of revenge, and so forth
-
we would much rather have things simple without too much
effort
- -
we really would like family, friends and work more than his
principles
+
Today’s Gospel is most important as we look at the
psychology of human living
-
if you want answers as to how to live a happy, fulfilled
life, to get it all together, to know who we are, to be on
top, to feel good about ourselves—how ever you describe
it
-we
have to first of all “lose our lives”—empty ourselves
-
and then fill up that emptiness with the principles of
Jesus Christ—lose ourselves for Jesus’ sake
-
do this, and then we can really live.
|