SPLINTER PATROL

The gospel for Friday this past week was from Luke 6:41-42: 

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove that splinter in your eye,’ when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.” 

 As I reflected on Jesus’s words I became aware of just how many of my brethren in the monastery have splinters in their eyes. Actually, a couple of people have multiple splinters. You know what I mean. This brother never puts the jelly jar back in the refrigerator. This other one never scrapes his dinner plate into the garbage, but leaves it to be washed, even though it’s still full of food scraps. Another one talks to himself half out loud much of the time. 

Yesterday, as an experiment, every time I noticed a brother doing something whose behavior I disapproved of, every time I noticed some sort of imperfection in a brother, I would whisper the word “Splinter” to myself. After just a few minutes I started to realize that everybody around me had at least one splinter and maybe more! 

The exercise was so unsettling that I quickly gave it up. (Maybe I was unconsciously influenced by the thought that all my brother monks have to look at me and see my own splinters every day?) 

In any case, not long afterward Jesus‘s words from the gospel passage began to echo in my head: “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye.”  My exercise had suddenly flipped around and was pointing back at me! 

I began trying to see the wooden plank in my own eye. This was a difficult exercise because by definition we don’t see those things easily in ourselves. I came to realize, though, that one “plank” I had just become aware of was that I too often see the splinter in my brother’s eye instead of seeing Jesus in him. Instead of seeing a person whose feet I am supposed to wash, all I see is a big splinter that irritates me. This is definitely part of my “wooden beam!” 

I'm tempted to abandon this exercise the way I abandoned my effort at seeing splinters in other people, but clearly, looking for the wooden beam that keeps me, for example, from seeing my own shortcomings or prevents me from recognizing Christ in other people is an important exercise. I better keep it up! 

 So, I’ve decided to give up the "Splinter Patrol" in favor of paying extra attention to my daily examination of conscience. 

 Welcome, Albert, to the "Wooden Beam Patrol!"

AN UNFREE GOD?

I have been rereading the Franciscan Richard Rohr’s “Immortal Diamond” and would like to share with you some of his thoughts about death. Everything that follows below is directly quoted from his book.

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The crucified one is God‘s standing solidarity with the suffering, the tragedy, and the disaster of all time, and God‘s promise that it will not have the final word. 

The Risen One is God‘s final word about the universe and what God plans to do with all suffering.

ABOUT DYING

In all of nature, one form has to die and decay for another to take over, so this pattern should be obvious and clear, although it is largely not — until you really observe or actually study the patterns of almost everything. Again, we appear to be in gross denial.

Jesus’  own dying has to be made quite clear and forthright in the gospels; in Mark, it is almost half of the text. His. “ necessary death” had to be made visible and compelling, because we all want to deny death and avoid the obvious. Quite unfortunately, we made Jesus‘ necessary dying into a mechanical atonement theory demanded by a “just” God, which had the side effect of keeping the spotlight away from our own necessary dying. Jesus indeed became our scapegoat, but not at all in the way that he intended. Avoiding our own necessary “pattern of  dying” (Phil 3:11), we constructed instead, a kind of metaphysical transaction, called “paying the price“ or "opening the gates,“ that was necessary for Jesus to complete. Then we worshipped him for doing this, which is understandable, but also avoids the point that we all have to pay the price for growing up and for loving.

Is God really unfree?

Jesus never said, “worship me,“ but he often said, “follow me.“ We have wasted a lot of good energy on “vicarious substitutionary atonement theories“ and created a punitive and petty God in the process —  a “Father God“ who was incapable of forgiving “without blood.“ Is God that unfree? Remember, the ego likes contests of win and lose, and cannot even comprehend anything like win-win. Jesus became our substitute in losing, hoping it would let us off the hook, I guess.

Fortunately, we Franciscans never officially believed this common substitutionary atonement theory. We were always a kind of alternative orthodoxy inside Catholicism. In the teaching of John Duns Scotus, Jesus was pure gracious gift, and not necessary at all. God operated out of total and absolute freedom in the gift of Jesus and the Christ to the world. 

Incarnation, the birth in Bethlehem, was already God‘s unconditional choice and gift of himself to us. Incarnation was already redemption. And why would a free gift be less beautiful than a necessity? Why would an act of a violence be necessary to redeem the world? For us, Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity, but to change the mind of humanity about God. It is “simple and beautiful;” as Einstein said great truth would always have to be. (136)

SANDALS AND MOSAICS

A close friend asked me to write a note to her sister, a firm believer who is fighting a losing battle with cancer, and has been wondering how we can be sure that God really is present in the midst of our sufferings. Since I've been praying hard for her for months, I felt that the Lord might offer me a few words of comfort to her. Here is what I wrote to my friend's sister a couple of days ago:.

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Dear_________________,

Here are a couple of thoughts that might be helpful to you right now.

If you look at the Book of Exodus chapter 3, the story of Moses and the burning bush, you will see in verse 5 that Moses is told. “Take off your sandals, for you are on holy ground!“ This is because he is in the presence of the Mystery of the Divine, namely, God. So he has to take his sandals off out of reverence for the mysterious presence that he will never be able to comprehend or understand. God is just too big for our intellects.

So when you or I are standing in the presence of some terrible suffering or some awful evil or some tragedy, the first thing we must do is take off our shoes! We are in the presence of a deep mystery that we cannot comprehend. That means that we cannot really “know” for sure if God is really here in the midst of all this suffering. All we have is the gift of faith.

Today is the feast day of Saint Augustine. He once wrote that our

life is like a beautiful mosaic. But the problem is that we only get to look at the mosaic from very close up. We see only one or two little pieces of the mosaic, and therefore it makes no sense to us. But when the Lord calls us home to heaven, we get to look at the entire mosaic. Then we can finally see that the whole picture is so unbelievably beautiful and full of love that it takes our breath away.

But the way things are in this life, we don’t get to see the whole thing.

Yet if you listen hard, you can hear the Lord apologizing to you. “I’m sorry. I wish you could see the whole picture right now, but in order for you to do that, you would have to be God. So, I’m sorry. I apologize. But for right now, please try to trust me. Look for all those bits of love that I reveal to you every day. That’s the best I can do.”

There. That’s at least my way of looking at things.

I hope this was of some help.

Love and prayers,

Fr. Albert

No Shoes, Please

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PHARISEES' FAULT

The gospel for Saturday, August 23, 2025 shows a confrontation between Jesus and the

Pharisees. By the time the gospel of Matthew was being written down, certain members of the Pharisee party had launched a full-fledged persecution of Christians. So it’s not surprising that the gospel writer portrays them in the worst possible light. While we have to avoid going overboard in our condemnation of the Pharisees, most of whom were sincere and observant Jews, we can nevertheless learn something from the mistakes of some of them.

The great Protestant theologian Paul Tillich defines religion as “the dimension of depth in reality.“ We humans are by nature symbol making creatures. Whatever dimension of depth we experience, we usually try to express it in various symbolic forms in story, poetry, music, ritual and other kinds of metaphorical language.

In my opinion, the Pharisees put such an emphasis on those outward forms (the observance of strict laws and customs, for example) that they lost the whole idea of “the dimension of depth in life”. It’s as if they put down a floor that prevented them from going deep into the transcendent Mystery of the Divine, the sacred mystery of who we are in God’s eyes. All they had left was the externals, without the ultimate Meaning that these were meant to point to and to celebrate. The gospel today lists some of those externals.

This God of the Pharisees was quite knowable and indeed quite under their control. All one had to do was obey all the laws and perform the rituals correctly and you kept God at bay. I once heard a super-religious person described this way: “He had God in his pocket.”

What a terrible loss! To have a God who is so small and weak that he fits in your pocket! 

But before we get too smug, we should notice that  the gospel writer ends this passage with a warning his fellow Christians to beware of falling into the same trap:

As for you, do not be called 'Rabbi.' You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers. Call no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. Do not be called 'Master'; you have but one master, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted."

We are warned: we may be very observant practicing Christians, but observances and religious practices will not get us into heaven any more than they did for those Pharisees.

MAKING THE CHOICE

The first reading at mass today, August 16, is from a very important chapter in the Bible,

Joshua 24. Known as the chapter of the “covenant renewal,” it tells of how the Israelites, having conquered most of the tribes in the promised land under the leadership of Joshua, are now challenged by him to renew their covenant with the God who brought their forefathers through the Red Sea, and who has brought them across the Jordan River into the Land of Milk and Honey. The passage used at mass (Joshua 24:14-29) is worth reading in its entirety.  

While I suppose that the idea of "covenant renewal" may provide a good meditation for you and me, there is one verse that really challenged me: “Put away the foreign gods that are among you.” 

The Israelites, like the pagan tribes around them, have been serving a variety of gods. Some of the gods are from back in the days of captivity in Egypt, while others have been picked up along the way.

Joshua now challenges the Israelites to “Put away the foreign gods that are among you and turn your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel” (v.23).

This verse has proven to be a good challenge for me. When God’s Help is not enough, what are the other helps that I turn to? The substitutes for God are too many to count, but some of the most common are possessions, controlling others, physical, pleasures, and distractions.

Joshua is challenging me today to stop turning to those false gods and to leave myself completely in the hands of the Lord.

This challenge has been coming up repeatedly in my life over the past couple of months. I

have to learn how to leave myself completely vulnerable to the father, Exactly as Jesus did.

As he hung on the cross, I receive your said “father, into your hands, I commend my spirit.“

Am I ready to repeat those words in my own life or do I still hang on to some of those old gods that offer a sense of security?

Let’s pray for one another that we can accept Joshua’s challenge today to put away both foreign gods and turn to the Lord, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE SECOND STRIKE

This past Thursday the first reading at mass was from the book of Numbers. The scene isone from the so-called “murmuring traditions.“\

 The Israelites are out in the desert, and they have run out of water. So they turn against Moses and Aaron, asking why Moses had brought them out of Egypt into this wilderness to die of thirst. In response, Moses and Aaron go to the Tent of Meeting where they present the problem to the Lord. 

The Lord tells them to assemble all the people so that they will see that the Lord can indeed provide water for them in the desert. After everyone is assembled, and the Lord assures them that he will produce water for them, he tells Moses to strike this big rock.

Chapter 20 verse 11 tells us what happens next.  Moses strikes the rock twice and water immediately gushes forth in torrents. Then in the next verse, the Lord says to Moses and Aaron, “Because you were not faithful to me in showing forth my sanctity before the children of Israel, you shall not lead this community into the land I will give them.”

What just happened? What provoked God‘s wrath against Moses and Aaron? Scholars have various explanations, but the one I have always preferred is this: Moses made a mistake by striking the rock a second time. When he strikes the rock he is following the Lord‘s command, and this one blow will be sufficient to work the miracle. But then Moses strikes the rock the second time, adding his own effort to God‘s power just to be sure. It is as if he doesn’t trust that God can really pull this off on his own. So the Lord complains “You did not have confidence in me!”

How often am I tempted to strike the rock twice myself? Do I always manage to trust God‘s power implicitly, with all my heart? “Just trust me, Albert, I will take care of it. You can stop striking that rock now, I’ll take care of everything! Or don't you have confidence in me?”

Too often, though, if you were to watch me carefully, you might catch me standing at this big rock and striking it over and over and over with a heavy stick. In the background, you will see the Lord smiling patiently, watching as I exhaust myself instead of asking the Lord to help. 

The next time you start to lose confidence in the Lord's power, think of Moses and that fateful second strike on the rock,

NEVER ENOUGH

In the Gospel reading for this Sunday, August 3, Jesus warns his followers to “avoid any kind of greed.”  I'd like to share with you a reflection that may bring this Sunday’s message close to home.

Do you remember the scene from the movie version of the musical "Oliver!"

where young Oliver is holding out his empty bowl and speaking for a hundred hungry orphans, as he asks from “More?” This is a poignant and powerful portrait of the human condition. There's something about us that is always left unsatisfied. We're forever seeking and striving as if answering some inner voice that keeps nagging, “There’s more!” 

No matter how much we have, our insatiable yearning soon returns. This constant incompleteness is the source of our greatness: all human creativity, all ambition and our accomplishments are a response to this built-in urge to complete ourselves. 

Our attraction to “more” is also however, at the root of one of the major vices in the New Testament: Greed. The Greek word is pleonexia, the word that Jesus uses in the gospel reading today.  Usually translated “covetousness,” or “greed,” pleonexia is a combination of pleos, “more,” and exo, “have.” The underlying idea is “wanting more,” or, maybe better, "being addicted to 'more.'" 

Pleonexia makes it onto several New Testament lists of nasty habits. The long litany of pagan vices at the beginning of Romans, for instance, includes “every form of wickedness, evil, greed (pleonexia), and malice;… envy, murder, treachery and spite. (Rom 1:29)”   In Ephesians it's on a short list of sins that are particularly contrary to the Christian ideal: “Immorality or any impurity or greed (pleonexia) must not even be mentioned among you, as is fitting among holy ones (Eph 5:3).”

Augustine of Hippo (354 -430 AD)

St. Augustine, with typically brilliant insight, reveals why pleonexia is so deeply rooted in us. For him, all human hungers and all our yearnings of whatever kind are simply different facets of one single deep, inborn desire: the desire for God. For him, pleonexia is one of countless misguided versions of our thirst for God. If Augustine is right, then we don't need to suppress our need for "more" -- in fact, we couldn't even if we wanted to! But what we need to do is to work at keeping our desires directed to their true object. Instead of letting created things be the center of our longing, we try to keep our eyes on God. St. Paul once wrote, "If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above, not of what is on earth.(Col. 3:1-2)" 

This may be a lot easier said than done. One place to start, though, is with the advice in the last sentence from Colossians: "Think of what is above." I know how easily my mind can get filled with concerns about class preparations, ,……., I know how easy it can be -  even in a monastery - to forget what life is ultimately about. 

Our materialistic consumer culture has made pleonexia  into a major religion. Every Sunday practitioners of pleonexia flock not to churches but to shopping malls. They devote hours a day meditating on the offerings on Ebay. In an economy that depends on ever-increasing consumer spending, pleonexia is not a vice but a virtue. Human happiness, we're told, depends on our buying more and more stuff, and consuming more and more goods and services. But no one seems to notice the built-in paradox: no matter how much we have, none of these ever brings final satisfaction-- they always leave us standing barefoot like young Oliver, empty bowl outstretched, still needing "more," wanting “more,” and looking for "more." Our culture accepts this and our economy depends on it.

A century before St. Augustine, the early monastics of the Egyptian desert had another insight into our constant need for more. They realized that once you put God at the center, you stop needing more and more, and in fact, require less and less. Living in caves or simple huts and owning nothing, they got to the point of going without food for days at a time. St. Francis of Assisi, too, turned pleonexia on its head and refused to own anything. 

These extreme examples can be more than just quaint studies in fanaticism. They can be jarring reminders to us Christians who live in a culture that praises pleonexia.  

Their message is a bedrock truth of spirituality for any Christian, from the parent with a house full of children, to the cloistered nun with a vow of poverty, once God truly becomes the center of your life, you need less and less of what the world has to offer in order to be truly content. 

The constant search for created things that preoccupies so many other people doesn't hold any attraction any more. My longings are now aligned in one single direction -- I'm hungry all the time for God.