Into the Sacred Hills of Jade

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Saturday. September 29, 2018

Jesus  told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.” – Matthew 13:33

To me, this parable is a teaching about process, the process of how a person of grace, their words, their actions, their example, their quality of spirit, slowly transforms the world around that person.   That process is by way of entering into the world with a Presence Holy, human and Divine.

But a word of caution, a statement of how this yeast process works … the ways of the world are also yeast trying to transform the person of grace.  Jesus once warned His disciples … “Be aware of the yeast of the Pharisees (for it so subtly ends up changing a soul and a movement from its original intent and its original way).  As the Christ within us seeks to change the world from the inside out; so do the ways of the world.

And what are those ways of the world of which I speak?

Materialism and greed, militarism and patriotism, self-interest and self-glorification, pride and hubris, intimidation and violence,… these are a few of those forces in the world that world tends to make more righteous than the righteousness of Christ.

And in the reverse that worldly process of the yeast slowly filling the soul is the yeast of the new Realm of God: grace, mercy, wisdom, gentleness of spirit, peacemaking, truth, hope, heavenly joy, goodness, kindness, patience, long-suffering for the sake of enduring, self-giving love, generosity… among so many other qualities of Christ’s Spirit.

So this is our mission … to go into the world without being overtaken by the world.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Chairtas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Friday, September 28, 2018

You hypocrites! [speaking to the Pharisees and scribes]  Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:  ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’                         – Matthew 15:7-9

This confrontational moment between Christ and those who thoughts of themselves as scholars of the scriptures and arguing over the details, embellishing those scriptures with interpretive commentary which in turn became self-defined scripture, … defines the Holiness asked for by Christ, the holiness of the heart.  Not holiness by way of rules, not a holiness by way of self-defined righteousness, not a holiness by way of exotic schemes of ordering scriptures … but rather a holiness of heart and the holy practice that flows out of such a heart.

Loved Ones, my contemplative life has as first priority allowing my heart to draw near to Christ’s heart.  It is a life of casting aside that keeps me distant from the feelings, dreams, and concerns of Christ’s heart.   It is a life of becoming filled with the Presence of God that transforms me from my old values and attitudes to those values and attitudes we find in Christ.  It is a life of allowing the heartbeat of Christ to my heartbeat as well.

We still have our legalists, our own generation’s Pharisees and scribes, who use the scriptures to confound the feelings in the heart of Christ.  They tat their doilies of scriptural verses and they selectively sift through thousands of years of cultural applications but somewhere along the line … they gain the timbre and tone of the Pharisees and scribes than that which sings from the heart of Christ.

I am a Christian, not a practitioner of Bibliolatry.  I turn not the Gospel into a pharisaical folly, rather I read the historical scriptures as they are read by Christ Himself.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. – John 14:27

Christ bequeaths to His disciples, a gift of Peace.  This Peace is of a certain quality, different from the peace the world provides.  But what distinguishes this Christ-Peace from the world’s peace?

In the world there is the anxious-peace, the peace that still is haunted by the threats of war. It is the peace provided by assured-mutual-destruction, a peace filled with threats, a peace sustained by armaments.

In the world there is the peace-of-the-temporary truce, the peace which provides a lull in the hostilities so that the combatants can recover their strength before resuming the conflict.

In the world there is the peace-of-the-Caesars, the peace of law and order which is enforced by might upon the cowering subjects, the peace promised by tyrants and authoritarian regimes.

In contrast, the Christ-Peace is the peace that is rooted in a Timeless Forever, the peace that comes with the reassuring Presence of the Lord, the peace that no longer fears and no longer threatens, the peace of knowing one’s soul that has woven within its fabric the Love that cannot be ripped apart though often becomes tattered.

I find that these present times have a desperate need for the Christ-Peace, not the peace of otherworldliness, not the peace of mightier-than-thou, not the peace of self-delusion and self-righteousness, but the Peace that goes beyond our human understanding as if within it lived the life of Christ.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Jesus said to His disciples: “Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come.   It would be better for them to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck than to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.” – Luke 17:1-3

The key to this teaching is to whom it is addressed … the disciples.  You might think it is directed to sinister, godless souls who had no understanding of Christ … but it is directed to the disciples … to people like me and like many of you.  We are believers … but believers must be ever mindful of how our words, our example, our cruelties, our collusions, our controversies, even our indifferences cause others to stumble.

“To cause to stumble”, two Biblical metaphors come to mind.  One is that of the stumbling block, that uneven step that goes unnoticed, that trips the one passing by.  The other is the blindness caused by dim light or obscuring smoke that does not provide a clear vision of what might cause a soul to stumble.  And disciples, those back then and those of us today, we can cause people to stumble in trying to prove our point, which then makes the point moot.  Disciples, those back then and those of us today, we can cause people to stumble by the smoke our zeal or the heretics we burn at the stake.  Disciples, those back then and those of us today, we can cause people to stumble over the stones we throw and by the painful ashes we cast into the air.

Declaring we are disciples of the Lord does not give us license to make sinful ways something sanctified.  So we to take heed of our need to self-exam our ways, or as Christ said to His disciples …”So watch yourselves lest you cause others to stumble!”

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Then Jesus’ mother, sisters and brothers arrived at the door of the crowded house. Standing outside, they called for Him.  A crowd was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for You.” And Jesus replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Looking at those who sat around Him, He said, “Here are my mother, my sisters and my brothers!  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” – Mark 3:31-35

I believe that one of the misunderstanding of many Christians is that they take the doing out of the act of believing.  Here, quite clearly, He states, even emphasizes through the syntax that it is not merely assenting to the reality of God that establishes a kinship with the Divine, but the actual doing of God’s will, God’s wishes and ways.

To Love as Christ did Love is not only a matter of the heart but also a matter of the hands.  Christian Love comes first from God then enters into the soul and then expresses itself out into the world with the making tangible to others that Love of God now received.  Doing the wishes and ways of God, translating God’s Heart into the human experience of servanthood.

Too often the Church defines faith in terms of doctrine.  Less often the Church defines faith more properly in terms of practice; not the religiously keeping of ritual drained of its meaning, but rather the doing of the wishes and ways of the Lord’s Heart in the ongoing work of bringing God’s Grace into the world.

It is true that we need only to believe, as long as that believing includes the dimension of doing.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Monday, September 24, 2018

Then Jesus said to His disciples,  “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.” – John 12:27

Even with all that is heavenly within Him, Jesus shares that is soul is troubled.  He knows what needs to be done, but He is daunted by what all this means.  He realizes that this is what required of Him, but yet … it stirs the anxiety and the apprehension that is part of what comes with being human.   It is a reckoning moment to dare face the challenge or turn away.  And I believe most of us, both you and me, also have had those reckoning moments.

I have often stated that our culture has a weakening sense of the “have-to”.  We live in self-designed world in which everything is a “want-to” choice.  We so want the luxury of doing only what we want to do … that we decline the challenges of doing what we are required to do.  Of course, this self-designed world of “want-to” choices has not been totally accomplished, but the “have-to” choices seem easier to avoid.

Christ, facing His own painful crucifixion as the final sacrifice of the Old Order and to enable sharing resurrected life in the lives of others, experienced that reckoning.  His love was powerful, but so was the cruelty as well.  He knew He would be mocked; He knew He would be rejected by many; He knew others would be disappointed that He did meet their expectations for a New King; He knew is would be an excruciating experience both of body and soul.  Yet … He knew what was required of Him if God’s great transition of covenants, from the Old Order to the New Order, to be accomplished.

In these reckoning moments we as did Christ draw upon the courage of God.  We draw upon our faith in the fulfillment of callings and vocations.  We allow the Lord to steady soul and enable us to behold the vision of what is beyond this reckoning.  And in the end, we trust in the reassurances of the Lord.

Will fear overwhelm our will to obedience?  Will we yield to the pressure of the crowd?  Will we rationalize away what the moment requires of us and hide from the moment?  Or have the faith to do what the Moment requires of us?

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Sunday, September 23, 2018

An argument arose among the disciples as to which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side, and said to them, “Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me; for the least among all of you is the greatest.”  – Luke 9:46-48

“For the least among all of you is the greatest.” I find irony here.  What if this teaching of Christ applied not only to Christians and Christian communities, but also that nations that claim they are a Christian nation? 

Christ confronts the egotism of the disciples competing with one another for leadership with the metaphor of a child … a beckoning to a near universal response of both caring responsibility and natural affection … as a child.  It is a call to innocence; it is a call to further growth; it is a call to dreams not yet fulfilled; it is a call to renewal of both hope and possibility.  “Toss your culturally enflamed egos aside and become as children.  We are not to be about climbing to the top and lifting the bottom.  We are not about the rich and the powerful and making them all the more so, but rather about the poor and the powerless and lifting them up.

But alas, now and in past centuries, Christians has rationalized away this clear and simply teaching of us … for the least of you shall be the greatest.  We are to be people of humble servanthood.  Yet … so many of us are still driven by worldly ambition and keep arguing,  “Which one of us will prove to be seen as the greatest?”  And we do so because it IS SO VERY NATURAL TO DO SO.

Christian as servant, Christian community as servant, and if there were such a thing, Christian nation as country of servants, it is part of Christ’s definition of what it means to be a Christian disciple.  But instead of humility … we delude ourselves into thinking that financial prosperity and military might are the measures of greatness.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Saturday, September 22, 2018

When the people witnessed Jesus providing food for the five thousand, the crowds began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”  When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, He withdrew again to the mountain by himself. – John 6:14-15

A cautionary lesson, a model to follow, this unwillingness of Jesus to be turned from His true work by being foisted on the shoulders of frenzied crowd.  The crowd had a vision for Him of a kingship not of God’s desire.  Christ would serve as King but not the king described in the accolades of the crowds with their rebellious spirit.  No, Christ would be King of kingdom of a universal reign.

How easy it is for a preacher to be seduced by the adulation of the congregation.  Soon the success and the prestige can snatch a preacher from his or her calling.  Arrogance can set in; self-glorification can overtake the humility; and the ego begins to conjure its delusions.  So many times, too many times, I have watched godly men and women fall prey to accolades of the crowds.

But it is not only preachers who must learn from Christ’s cautionary example.  It can happen to even laity who experienced their own calling.  Success and fame, constant adulation by the enabling crowd, these can seduce a soul into the folly of arrogance and the tragedy of self-righteousness.  And that seduction most often leads to a tragic fall when the king fails to fulfill the expectations of the crowd.

Yes, Christ would become the Sovereign but as defined by the adoring crowd.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Crz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Friday, September 21, 2018

When Jesus entered the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came to him as He was teaching, and said, “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?” Jesus said to them, “I will also ask you one question; if you tell me the answer, then I will also tell you by what authority I do these things. Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin?” And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say to us, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’  But if we say, ‘Of human origin,’ we are afraid of the crowd; for all regard John as a prophet.” So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And He said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things. – Matthew 21, 2018

“By what authority are you doing these things?!” I have heard that question asked of me so many times.  “By what authority do you say such things?”  The first time was asked by a farmer as we both leaned against a fence.  The old man asked of the young preacher …”Why should I listen to you?”  A powerful and much needed question to be asked of a preacher who dares to herald the thoughts of God.  “By what authority?”

As the years passed, people have challenged my “opinion” on things.  Oh, I do have my opinions and I pray they are well-formed opinions which are of the same worth as everyone’s opinions, but I, at times, do not share opinion but rather a prophetic voice.  This prophetic voice communicated in either voice or action is an act of placing my own soul in jeopardy by daring to echo the thoughts and feelings of God.  And I know by so doing I will be held accountable by the Lord.

This prophetic voice comes out of a life of prayer, a life of servanthood, a life of seeking to behold life from a Higher Perspective, a life of wrestling with God and yielding to God, a life of total devotion to the Lord.  This prophetic voice is not mere opinion … it is the calling that the Lord has demanded of my soul.

I have opinions about this preference over that preference, but when it comes to matters of good and evil, I no longer have my personal opinions but rather the opinions of the Lord.  Time will prove if I were a false prophet or a true prophet … and I will be held accountable for that … but it IS my holy vocation to discern with Divine Wisdom what is of God and what is not.

“By what authority do I dare speak out?”  By the authority of Christ and the Christ who guides me.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz

DAILY DEVOTIONAL

Thursday, September 20, 2018

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Temple authorities, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” After He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.  Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” – John 20:19-23

In the Gospel of John, the Spirit is as breath, the Hebrew evidence of life being present in a mortal soul.  There was a time, not that long ago, when people would check to see if someone were still alive though yet they appeared motionless would place a mirror close to one’s mouth and nose to see if a faint breath would fog the mirror.  From ancient times we have referred to the notion of one’s last breath and have spoken of a baby drawing its first breath.  Yes, breath is a reference to the presence of life.

Only John makes reference to this baptism by way of breath.  “He breathed upon the disciples and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ ”  It is as if John wanted us to understand by way of the baptism by breath we begin our life with the Life of Christ living within us.  We begin our ministry of bringing the Life of Christ into the world.  We begin our lives as human souls Divinely graced.

John also has Christ emphasizing by way of proximity that the first order of the day for those baptized by the Breath is the work of forgiveness.  We ourselves enter into the Divine Initiative of Grace.  We have no choice but to forgive for we have within us the ongoing Life’s Breath of Christ.  We now have the calling to forgive, the commandment to forgive, but possibly in the highest order, now the impulse and desire to forgive.

It is the first mission of the Christian and the Christian community to forgive, to allow the grace and mercy to flow into through our human agency.

Always in Christ’s Service,

Fr. Charitas de la Cruz