June 21, 2004

"Sacrificial Love"

In the third paragraph of Our Holy Rule, we read, "Through a charismatic gift of the Spirit, we commit to live as victims of God's most merciful love for the salvation of souls (p. 1)."  I want to make sure that we don't gloss over that.  "We commit to live as victims of God's most merciful love for the salvation of souls."  This sacrificial love is a charismatic gift of the Spirit.  "This sacrificial love invites us to enter into the Pascal Mystery through the spirit of the Beatitudes and makes it a living reality in our lives" (Our Holy Rule, p. 1).  We enter into the Pascal Mystery through the spirit of the Beatitudes. 

What really is the spirit of the Beatitudes?  What is Jesus trying to teach us when He gave us that beautiful Sermon on the Mount?  We need to know and understand them well.  They were given to everyone.  The Evangelical Counsels for the entire Church came out of these Beatitudes but somehow got relegated to the few people who make religious vows.  This isn't what Jesus intended.  He gave them to everyone.  So it's the spirit of the Beatitudes that stands behind our vows and promises.  Without the Spirit, there is no power.

We are to live in the world but not be of it (see Jn 15:18-19; Jn 17:11).  This Beatitude will detach us from the world and even more importantly, it will begin to detach us from ourselves.  The hardest detachment of all is to let go of ourselves.  We are called as victim lambs to live Jesus and His Cross.  We are called to transforming union, but specifically transforming union with the Lamb who was slain.  We have been given this special charismatic gift of the Spirit in this power to lay down our lives so that He can take up His. 

It's interesting that the first and the last Beatitude have the same promise, "the reign of God is theirs" (see Mt 5:3).    "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for holiness sake; the reign of God is theirs" (see Mt 5:10).  This means having that total emptiness and total availability to let God's justice, power, and mercy come through us out of our poverty.  There isn't any poverty quite like it.  We are called into transforming union with the Lamb who was slain, with Jesus Christ Crucified.  The whole vision of this charism is Jesus on the Cross, particularly the pierced heart of Jesus.

Excerpt from "Formation on Rule," Omaha, NE, 2003.