-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at USCCB.org
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 5:30 and 8:00am
Remain, stay, live!
The captivating phrase in this Sunday's gospel text for me is in Latin "manete" which is translated in several different ways: remain or stay or live on. Remain is the preferred English word and it is the one used to translate our scriptures for mass. However I prefer live. "Live on in my love" is the motto of Bishop Pilla who served along time as the Bishop of our church. To Live on in my love is a rather lively translation of the word to remain. There is more than one way to remain.
The translation of the word remain that I do not favor is stay. Staying is a very passive, undynamic, and deadly expression. Think of the many different ways that you might remain or stay somewhere. The inmate must remain behind bars. The patient in the doctors office must remain in the waiting room. The celebrity who is about to go onto the television or to the stage must remain in the green room. The athlete about to come up to bat must remain on deck and the skier about to come down the slope must remain in the shoot.
Many different ways of remaining. If we are instructed to remain in Christ the resurrected One we must have several options. How are you and I remaining in him? Is our remaining a sense of being trapped or imprisoned? Is our remaining waiting with dread of bad news about ourselves? Is our remaining the energized and excited anticipation of the actor or the athlete? Is our remaining that of the incurably ill persons confined to their bed awaiting or remaining in watch for death? Where you are remaining dictates how you will experience life.
Our faith, our life in Christ, our remaining will depend upon what we understand Christ is and what He's doing. What we understand it is supposed to be. Remember, they believed but did not yet understand. Isn't it possible that many of us are remaining in Christ with very little understanding, therefore, very little life in Christ, life animated in Spirit, life lived in the resurrection from the dead? I think so!
What do you think question?
3 comments:
For me, God's love has become better than life; better than "living" itself. "Remaining" in the "stillness" and beauty of His love is greater than living a life. I am able to remain constant within Him and He in me truly giving up my whole "life" to Him.
Yes, your prep connects. One thing I recently discovered...the more I grow in faith, there is a correlation to growing in love. And up until recently, and I think almost unknowingly, I gave and loved as I saw fit. Maybe that's the way of concupiscence, ego, I don't know. So I was "remaining" in Christ's love (me & Jesus mentality), yet giving & loving others in a more reserved way.
Now I know .... Jesus calls me Friend and in the way He loves me, I must love...it is fullness of Joy to give as He gives, it's union & communion with Father, Son & Spirit that creates greater union & communion with all God's people. The more the merrier in Love & Joy!!! AND He COMMANDS me to love, to give to others as He gives to me. Strong word.
I appreciate your reflection about the different translations for 'remain,' and as I consider my life in Christ I see that I stay, dwell in his love - and then I live, go in his love.
In younger years I spent more time living and going - lots of active work life, family life, volunteer life. But a person gets pretty tired doing that - when not spending enough time in balance with staying and dwelling. Eventually burn-out sets in, because we need - I need - to also simply sit with him, rest in him, and invite him to rest in me.
When I live my life that way - with the balance - I am more aware of why I do what I do - and I am more able to accept the disappointments and hardships that are bound to come along. Rather than causing bitterness, I see them also as a vehicle for God's grace at work in me in some way.
So, I like thinking of ‘remaining’ as both ‘staying’ and ‘living’ – that gives it a fullness that only one of the words by itself doesn’t hold. To ‘remain’ in him, I stay quietly with him – as lovers do; but then, through his love, I join his other lovers and members of his Body in the world – and we ‘live’ his love out together, hopefully drawing others into him.
Post a Comment