Understanding Human Jesus: Rev. Fr. Paul Check, Transcribed by Deacon Dr. Bob, Memphis

UNDERSTANDING THE HUMAN SOUL OF JESUS CATHOLIC MANHOOD - A RETREAT BY FATHER PAUL CHECK At the Sister Servants of the Eternal Word, Casa Maria Retreat House, Irondale, AL March 23-25, 2012 (Talk #2) Every human heart seeks joy. And in our consideration of Christian Manhood this is the joy for which we are made; the joy that Jesus Christ promises. Our Lord told us as much. He said, “I have told you these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy might be complete.” And now that we have considered searching out the face of God, wanting to separate or purify ourselves from anything that is not of God, we take another step to discover that virtue which is essential. Indeed it is the most fundamental virtue, the most important of all of the Christian virtues, the one without which we cannot have joy. St. Paul tells us that we are to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh” (Phil. 3:3). That verse, as you may know, is the verse that converted St. Augustine. And we desire to put on Christ because we want to share in his joy. St. Augustine said that the whole of Jesus’ life is an instruction in human conduct. So we look carefully at the life of our Lord as it is presented to us in the Gospel and as the Church has reflected upon it for two thousand years. And we meditate with faith and love and reverence on the words and the actions, the very person of our Lord. He lived a model human life. He lived an intensely happy human life. And that model is given to us so that we know how to conduct ourselves before God and with each other. We strive to live Jesus’ virtues with the help of grace because this is the path to joy, the path to holiness. He enjoined as much upon us when he said “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). So Jesus shows us how to be human, to recover what was lost in the Garden and indeed to go beyond that. He lives every virtue and grace perfectly, and each stage, each episode of his life, reveals a different perfection. And for our part as for disciples of the Master, we try to reproduce in ourselves his manner of being and acting, not just as an external action but rather that transformation of the heart into the heart of Christ. Now in order to do that, we need a unifying principle, not just a piece that is taken here or there. We want the unique spirit of Jesus Christ. We want to know what it was that gave unity to his human life, what is the key to understanding his human soul, his human character, therefore what is the key to human existence, to your life and my own. And the Lord knew that we would need help in finding this unifying principle, and even after we discovered it our unruly wills would tend to lead us off course without its assistance. So on one occasion (and I think I am right in saying that there is only one occasion in the Gospel) our Lord points directly and very personally to himself and he instructs us to imitate him in one particular way. This comes from Matthew 11:20-30, “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls; for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Learn from me, Jesus says. He shows himself to us by pointing to his humble heart. So we can say that this is Jesus’ own view of himself. It is his humility that guides and forms all of his other virtues. What shapes our Lord’s spiritual character, that is to say in his human soul, is his humility. We see it especially in his relationship with his Father, his relationships with others and of course in the circumstances of his life. So what I propose to you, this morning, dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, is that to grow in the virtue of humility is to become more Christ-like, and then to grow in charity. Charity will follow from humility. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that humility is the mother and foundation of all the virtues. And it was in this that our Lord instructed us in particular to imitate him. It is the form or character of his spirituality. Now I said a moment ago that we see this luminous virtue especially with regard to his relationship with his Father. How can we describe that? Our Lord had such reverence for his Father, and that reverence is a marvelous blend of two things. First there is wonder or awe, and secondly there is confident familiarity. There is wonder or awe that is proper for a son to have for his father, and then there is that confident familiarity in which Jesus cries out, “Abba, Father.” So he perfectly accepts the sovereignty of his Father. And in so doing he embodies perfectly the spiritual childhood that he wants to discover in us. And so he said, “Unless you become like little children you will never enter the Kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child he is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven” (Mark 10:15). And so it is that our Lord is the perfect child of God. He embodies that spiritual childhood for us, the foundation and form of which, is the virtue of humility. Now what is this luminous virtue? If we have the wrong idea of humility then we won’t identify it in Jesus Christ; we won’t spot it; we won’t be able to see it. To be humble cannot be understood as simply having lowly circumstances in life. That may be an expression of it, but it is not the essence of the virtue. St. Thomas tells us that humility is a “praiseworthy self-abasement.” That seems a bit of a paradox, that it is praiseworthy to lower ourselves. But, of course, this is something that our Lord enjoined upon us; “Whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12). But humility begins with a profound reverence for God. We are his creatures; or said another way, we are his children. And that is truth. So the foundation of the virtue of humility is the recognition that we are created beings, contingent beings, and that we have received some of what makes God to be God, by virtue of the fact that we are his children. In natural generation something of the parents passes into their children. This is true for everyone in this chapel this morning. The life of our father and mother passes into us. We are their son or their daughter. So it is with our Father in heaven. Some of what makes him God has passed into us. But we only exist because he has chosen to make us; he has chosen to create us, and he has chosen to call us to himself as his beloved sons and daughters. Now if we hold onto that idea very tightly and if we try to reflect on what it means, then our reverence for God will deepen and we will have the beginnings of the virtue of humility; for humility restrains the unruly desire for esteem, and for consideration that goes beyond our due. The opposite of humility of course is pride, and pride asserts an independence of judgment of will that is not proper to us as God’s creatures, as his beloved sons and daughters. It is not for us as God’s children to exalt ourselves. It is for God in his providence and in his love to raise us up. And so the virtue of humility begins inside the soul with this disposition, and it may lead to very simple or modest or lowly circumstances in an external fashion but it begins interiorly here (the heart). The Catechism tells us what happened at original sin, even if some of it still remains shrouded in mystery, why it is that our first parents acted as they did. But the Catechism says this, “In that original sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him.” Those are very strong words, that we would prefer ourselves as creatures to our Creator, that we would prefer ourselves as sons and daughters to our Father, and in so doing scorn Him. It is as though as we have raised our fist to Him. It is as though we are in an argument with him who is our source, and our end, and our purpose in life. And so here is that sin of pride in our first parents, Adam and Eve that manifests itself then in an act of disobedience. Now the desire to be like God is good and this is of course that Satan held out for our first parents. The desire to be like God is good; indeed that is the highest of all desires. But our first parents wished to become like God in a way that God had forbidden. They wanted to become like God without God. And so they set aside their spiritual childhood, and they committed the sin of pride. St. Thomas tells us that pride is the great obstacle that keeps us from God; it is the disease that infects our human nature. But that terrible vice, pride, is banished or conquered by the great humility of Jesus Christ. Humility is a peaceful, meek, and loving recognition before God that we are nothing; that we are nothing without him except misery, and poverty, and weakness. Humility is that peaceful, meek, loving recognition before God that we are nothing without him; that we do not exist without him; that we are not without him, except misery, and poverty, and weakness. Everything that is ours, beginning with life itself, comes from Him. We are the custodians, the administrators of the goods entrusted to our care. What did St. Paul say, what do any of us have that we have not received? And in his goodness, and his generosity, and his love for his children the Father sustains us at each moment. But in ourselves we are really nothing. We owe everything to him. And that is the proper order of things; that is the truth. So if we understand who we are in relationship to our Father, when our conduct is directed by this true knowledge, then we have the beginnings of the virtue of humility. Now I said that our Lord’s relationship with his Father was demonstrated by, or seen in two fashions, the wonderful blend of wonder and awe on one hand and confident familiarity on the other. So what I have just described is something that Jesus knew in his human soul about himself. And because of his perfect humility the will of his Father was the order and rule of his life. And so his relationship with his Father was characterized by a deep reverence and therefore humility. “My food is to do the will of the One who sent me,” he said. So if we are to follow the path of the Master we want to adopt this reverence to our Father in heaven which will help to give us the virtue of humility, and we follow Jesus’ example, in embracing God’s providence, just as our Lord did. I suggested this morning in the sermon at Mass that one of the reasons that we lose our peace is that we think, or perhaps act in such a way, that indicates we don’t really trust in God’s providence. We say, “No, I must take care of this because God has forgotten; or he is not attending to it, at least as I would wish.” And when we lose that sense of filial piety and spiritual childhood, when we do not trust in the providence of God, we have forfeited in some degree the virtue of humility; something our Lord never did. No matter how painful and demanding his mission here on earth, he always accepted with reverence the providence of his Father. This is what characterizes his life. And as a result of that our Lord never lost his peace; he always trusted in the goodness of his heavenly Father no matter how much his human heart was being stretched, so to speak, by the consequences of living in a fallen world. And this is something that expresses so beautifully the humility of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made flesh. He accepted the consequences of living in a fallen world among sinful creatures. And in doing so he made a deliberate choice. He did not at any time exempt himself or protect himself from the consequences of living in a fallen world among sinful creatures. A few weeks ago at the beginning of the Lenten season it is proper to read from Matthew chapter 4, the temptations of our Lord by Satan. And one of the things Satan wants Jesus to do is to use his own divine powers for his own benefit, to change the stones into bread, and our Lord will not do that. He will not make use of his divinity the shield himself or protect himself in any way from the consequences of a confused, painful, and fallen world. In this he shows us a love which is reaching to the very limits of sacrifice, the fullest limits of sacrifice. Our Lord, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made flesh, chose very deliberately to identify himself with the lot of fallen and sinful man, with all of its pain and discomfort, even though he himself was sinless. St. Paul describes this very beautifully in the second chapter of his letter to the Philippians. It is a passage that I am confident that you know well. It is sometime referred to as the “Kenosis Hymn.” And this is what St. Paul writes, “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus who, though he was by nature God, did not consider being equal to God a thing to be clung to. Rather he emptied himself (the kenosis) taking the nature of a slave and being made like unto men, and appearing in the form of a man he humbled himself, being obedient to death, even to death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8). Very mysterious, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Word made flesh, humbling himself, taking the form of a slave, emptying himself, what does this mean? If we are to strive for the dispositions that were in the heart of Christ, we want to meditate on this idea, how Jesus Christ in his divinity is not of this world but enters into this world, and yet he never claims any divine prerogatives for himself. On the contrary, as St. Paul describes, he takes our lot and he makes no exceptions for himself, and in that is his humility. He chooses to identify himself, though he is divine, with us, in this fallen and dangerous and often painful world. And why does he do this? He does this out of love. He does this out of love for his Father. He does this out of love for us poor banished children of Eve. And he does it by submitting himself, without complaint and without rebellion, to our situation just as if he were as sinful as we are, though of course we know he was not. So in his life on earth Jesus comports himself; he acts and he suffers as though he were the same as we poor banished children of Eve. But his humility does not consist in his poverty, or hidden life in suffering, first of all; these things flow from something else. But rather, it is in the inner disposition of his heart in which he would not rebel, in which he would not sin. Nowhere in sacred Scripture do we find Jesus saying something like, “This should not be happening to me.” We know that even if we do not dare to speak those words (and perhaps sometimes we do) that that disorderly impulse rises up. We have a tendency to at least entertain the thought that, “This should not be happening to me.” Our Lord never said that. He never thought that. And in that consists his humility, because he perfectly accepted the providence of his Father, because he loves the Father. And he loves us poor banished children of Eve. You see, he chose to enter a world made disorderly by sin and he did not emancipate himself from the dreadful consequences of such a world. Why, because he wanted to place himself under the providence of the Father. Brothers and sisters in Christ it is exactly in that, placing himself under the providence of the Father, that he asks us to imitate him. “Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart.” And he encourages us to take the very same path to the Father, because he knows that there is no other path on which peace and joy will be found. I want to go back to the point that I made at the beginning, something that we may not think about explicitly very often, but it would be very helpful for us, it seems to me, in the interior life. The central symbol of our faith is the Crucifix, and well it should be, for it is the most profound expression of the love of God. But we also want to say alongside that, that Jesus Christ lived and intensely happy human life because he did the will of his Father. So, the cross is not at variance with the love of God; it expresses the love of God and it is part of Jesus’ love that he goes to Calvary. But his life, and his love for his Father, his joy, remains intact. And so it is that we wish to follow him. Now of course we are not as the Lord. St. John reminds is of this very plainly in his first letter when he reminds us that “if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (See 1 John 1:5-10). So, as a matter of our reverence for the truth, we accept, peacefully, humbly, that we are sinful creatures, because that is the truth of our fallen human condition. And we suffer as a result of our own sins or as a result of the sins of others, all the way back of course to the sin of Adam. But here is the key point, if we are to imitate the Master. We are to suffer the abuse of free will on the part of other free moral agents, on the part of other people; we are to suffer that free will without resentment, without bitterness, without saying “this should not be happening to me; this is not my ‘due;’ I deserve better.” Once again we cannot find those phrases, those sentiments, in the Gospel, in the mind, or heart, or the lips of Jesus Christ. It is part of God’s providence that we suffer the abuse of free will without resentment, because, as part of God’s mysterious providence, he allows the abuse of free will. It is still one of the great mysteries of our faith that after the conquering of sin and death by the Paschal Mystery there is yet the abuse of freedom in this world. That of course is a sadness. But if we endure harshness, and unkindness, and misunderstanding, and injustice with a peaceful resignation, then we will be maintaining our proper order as God’s creatures as his beloved sons and daughters. If we do something else, if that bitterness or resentment enters the heart as a result of suffering or pain, then we could be sinning against humility, and that is pride. We are fallen members of a fallen race. In the letter to the Hebrews we find these words, “Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted” (Heb. 12:2-3). Our Lord never asks us to do something that he himself has not already lived and done. Even if we were without guilt we can still and should still follow the example of Christ without resentment when it happens that we suffer as a result of the abuse of someone else’s freedom. But it is precisely that we are not free from guilt that we should all the more avoid any resentment. Indeed it is our very sinful condition that impels us to demand an exemption from the effects of a fallen world. But this is why many years ago when we were very little our mothers perhaps instructed us on how to “offer things up.” Sometimes that is a phrase that we get a little tired or weary of hearing, but it is given to us in Christian charity to give meaning or purpose to redeem things that are beyond our control so that they will give glory to God and build up the good of our souls. They will give meaning to that suffering that we cannot avoid. Let’s think for a minute about how we approach this world. Would you say that because of our fallen condition, in our fallen human nature, that we demand the most minute perfection from others in their dealings with us while we tend to readily excuse ourselves and even justify our shortcomings in our dealings with others? We expect that driver who is in front of us is perfectly observing the rules of the road and the speed limit all the time. We are intolerant when they are a bit slow or they change lanes without putting on the signal. (You can think of many other examples.) But if we do that we expect the person behind us, so to speak, to indulge our fault, going too slow, being distracted, texting while we are driving, or failing to use the signal indicator while we go from the left to the right, or something like that. It is really an unhappy, unhealthy paradox, you see? We expect in a sense that everyone else be “immaculately conceived” and that we have the only privilege of being the only sinner in the world. No, “the rest of the world should be perfectly just with me, but I am free to have faults, which you must bear and accept.” That is madness! (and a failure in humility). Now let me quickly say something before a letter is sent off to my Bishop or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith questioning my bona fides as a preacher. Everything I have just said does not mean that we are not to do what we can to correct injustice or to protect ourselves legitimately against it. That is a very important point and I assume you knew that already but it is probably good because this conference is being taped to say it explicitly. Of course we have an obligation, first in the natural order and in the order of super-nature, to correct injustices where we can, as we also have a legitimate right to protect ourselves against injustice. That is a duty; it is part of furthering the reign of justice, first in ourselves and then in others and furthering the Kingdom. But here is the distinction, what is wrong and what we do not want to do is cherish the spirit of sullen revolt against our condition as fallen creatures who live among other fallen creatures, and to demand for ourselves the conditions of a perfect world as being alright. That is what is wrong. I cannot be resentful or bitter because the world is not ordered perfectly. I have no right to demand, as my right, that I would live in a perfect world. Our Lord himself never did that. He came into world made disorderly by sin and he did so willingly, without complaint, or rebellion, or resentment, or the rest. So if we are going to grow in holiness after the example of the Master, it does not mean that we do not try to shield ourselves from this world. These good sisters who are living here in this convent have not come here to shield themselves from a fallen world. On the contrary, the more just a person is the more injustice that they are likely they are to endure. We only have to see that in the Person of Christ. The more just a person is the more abuse of freedom they are likely to endure. Jesus entered a world darkened by sin and resistant to truth, so he engaged in the spiritual combat. St. John uses the metaphors of darkness and light to speak about this in his Gospel. St. Paul talks about the kingdom of sin and the Kingdom of justice. This is the spiritual combat that our Lord enters this world to engage in. Archbishop Fulton Sheen said that the saddest words in the Gospels are “there was no room at the Inn.” It does not simply mean that there was no place corporally or materially for Joseph and Mary to come and give birth to their child, but rather there was no room in the “Inn” of man’s heart to receive the Messiah, to receive the Savior. Our Lord in his perfect humility accepted that. This would be part of his life, his condition, as the light in a world that prefers darkness. When we look at the cross, which we of course want to do especially now during Lent, we tend to think about “ransom,” and “substitution,” and “atonement,” and those things are all good and important things for us to think about. Jesus has taken our “place.” But when we look at the cross we want to think not only of “substitution,” and “ransom,” and “atonement,” we want to think of something else. We want to think of “solidarity,” Jesus’ solidarity with fallen man. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity made flesh freely choosing the condition St. Paul describes, that he would be “with us.” “Immanuel, God is with us.” And it is in that “solidarity” that he expresses his compassion and his humility. What happened to Christ will happen to his disciples. St. Paul wrote this in his Second Letter to Timothy, “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” And so there is a conflict; there is a double conflict. There is a conflict within and there is the conflict without. There is the conflict within of that tendency that we have to self-love, selfishness, and the rest. There is the conflict without because of the lack of perfection in the world, the lack of true justice in the ordering of the goods. If in humility we accept, as Christ did, living in a fallen world without resentment, or bitterness, or anger, then we will enjoy the peace of Christ. We will do as he did; we will make ourselves an entire oblation to God, freely and joyfully. This is the way of the saints, because it is the way of Christ. One of the luminous things about the saints is that they looked at nothing that happened to them as underserved. That is an expression of their humility. The saints do not say things like, “This should not be happening to me.” They accept it. They accept it either as the expiation of their own human weakness and sin, or they accept it as Christ accepted it, for the expiation of the sins of the world and in solidarity with fallen man. So humility does not mean self-depreciation; it does not mean thinking little of myself. Rather, it means not thinking of myself at all. Indeed, as long as I am feeling humiliated, I am not yet humble. What is humiliation? Humiliation means that something that is happening to me, a situation that I am in, is somehow inferior to what I think I deserve. Humiliation is that difference between what is happening to me and what I think should be happening to me. That is what that gap is. There is nothing in me for which I can claim esteem. Again St. Paul, “What do we have that we have not received?” Everything good comes from God and so we bear the wrongs of a fallen world without bitterness or resentment. Now our Lord did not ignore his own sanctity. On one occasion, as recorded by St. John, Chapter 8, vs. 46, he said, “Which of you convicts me of sin?” So he knew that he was holy. To know one’s gifts, either natural or supernatural, in not necessarily to be prideful. Our Lady did not correct Gabriel when he called her “full of grace.” In the Magnificat she says, “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.” She refers things back to him. I do not think our Lady said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord.” I think she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” She spoke in the third person, not in the first person. Why, because she never took credit for anything and she always saw things through his eyes, God’s eyes. “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.” So she was aware of the way that God had blessed her but she referred all of those things back to him. Teresa of Avila said it like this, “Nothing can place such an obstacle in the way of our spiritual progress as ignoring or striving to hide from ourselves the graces we have received from God.” The problem is our tendency to think of our gifts as ours, as “mine.” I would do well to think of whatever gifts I have as something that are really independent of me, to hold them in the same esteem in others, as in myself, if I am blessed with something. If those things arouse in me the same reaction when I see them in someone else then that is the right thing. I should be glad for the virtues of others; I should praise God for the gifts, and graces, and blessings that others have and not to in any way be envious. If we esteem only what is of God and not what is of self, then we will never be humiliated. Nothing that happens from outside of me can change my dignity as a child of God. Let me say that again, nothing that happens outside of me, or that happens to me, can change my dignity as a child of God. Indeed, unjust treatment serves to help me grow in humility and therefore holiness. Our Lord suffered an untold number of humiliations, but he never felt humiliated. He always maintained his divine calm, dignity, and majesty. Is not this what he promises in Matthew 11? “Come to me all you who labor, who are living in a fallen world among fallen creatures, and who are sometimes the recepiants of injustice and the abuse of freedom on the part of others.” The labor I think he is referring to is not just the physical labor from which we tire because it is perhaps a heavy form of toil. It is not just the fatigue of the flesh. “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest and peace for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Humility leads to peace and joy which our Lord has come into this world to share with us; his joy, his peace, the peace that the world cannot give or take! I think that promise, which is a divine promise, is one of which we only believe fifty-percent. We will accept that the peace of Christ is other-worldly; that is, the peace that the world cannot give. But I am not so sure we accept the second part, that this peace that the world cannot give, the world cannot take! It is only that we give up our peace. We surrender it. Only from within through sin do we suffer any loss of peace, any loss of dignity. It is not from the actions of others; they cannot affect the truth of who we are and of our relationship with God. If we maintain a reverence for the divine, the reverence of Jesus Christ for his Father, if we maintain a reverence for the divine in ourselves, dear children of God, if we maintain a reverence for the divine in others (they are children of God), that will lead to charity, to the exclusion of self-sufficiency and arrogance. Humility is trust in God. Humility not only protects our dignity but it inspires in us zeal and magnanimity in the service of God and his Church. If we truly have the virtue of humility we will never be afraid of being humiliated. We will not worry about human respect, or the judgment of the world, or what other people think. We will not rely on our own strength. We will only rely on the goodness and the strength of God. The more that we place ourselves in God’s hands the more effective instruments we will be for his glory and for the salvation of souls. The generosity and the goodness of the Father are shown to us in the love and the humility of the Son. The Incarnation gives us a closer look at who our Father in heaven is, and what a gracious, and benevolent, and generous Father we have. Cardinal Newman said that we determine the price or the value of something before we pay for it. We go to the store before we take something off the shelf we know that we will pay three dollars for it, perhaps, but not ten. So we know something’s value according to what we are willing to pay. And so Blessed John Henry Newman uses this as a metaphor to help us understand our value as God’s children, because he is willing to pay the highest of all possible prices to obtain our hearts and souls for his Kingdom. And it is the humility of Christ that makes this possible. And it is in this that our Lord asks us to imitate him, the first and most important of all the Christian virtues. O, Jesus meek and humble of heart make our hearts like unto Thine; in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen Transcript by Deacon Bob Walker