Philippians 2:5-11 / Luke 14:15-24
Jesus became one of us: He took the form of a servant.
An Islamic parable tells of a traveller who strayed into the "Land of the Fools." There he saw a mob shouting hysterically. "A monster is in our field," they cried. The traveller drew nearer and saw that the monster was only a watermelon, a fruit the fools had never seen before.
To show how fearless he was, the traveller cut up the melon and ate it. The villagers became even more terrified. "He's worse than the monster," they said. And they drove the traveller out of their land. Months later the scene repeated itself with another traveller. This time the traveller showed the same fear like the people unlike the first traveller and ran along with the fools. He took up residence among the fools and taught them eventually to overcome their fear of watermelons. Before he left, the villagers began not only eating them, but learned to cultivate them.****
Which traveller are we like? "If you stop to be kind,
you must often swerve from your path." Mary Webb
****
Nowhere does St Paul show us as tender a love for Christ as
here. It is the love that formed his mentality. He puts it in the words of an
early Christian hymn: We sing it still in the Carol: "He left all his
glory behind, to be born and to die for mankind". Christ is God from all
One of the main distractions in our prayer time is that our
minds are filled with thoughts about almost anything and everything. But it is
not just about anything and everything; it is anything and everything about
ourselves. Our thoughts will just surface when we want to settle down for
prayer and we will start thinking of the things we have not yet done and the
things that we want to do but have not found the time for. And on top of that
there are also the worries and the anxieties of life that come flooding in and
often we feel that prayer time is a distressful time instead of a peaceful
time. We get discouraged because we feel we are not going anywhere in prayer
and we may eventually give up on prayer.
Yet the gospel parable tells us that God is inviting us to sit down at the
banquet with Him and feast on the riches of His love.
Just as the 1st reading said of Jesus in that He did not cling to His equality
with God but emptied Himself to assume the condition of a slave, we too
need to empty our hearts in prayer and to know that we can't solve all the
problems of our lives just by thinking about them. We have to put it into the
God's hands in prayer and then to let God's love and peace fill our hearts. When
our hearts are filled with God's love and peace at prayer, then we will know
what to do.
****
Let us pray: Lord, mighty God, people – that is we
–often want to be their own gods; we want to decide for ourselves what we want
to be and what is right and wrong. Thank you for sending us your Son who is God
and wanted to be a human being, to serve people, to suffer for people, to save
people from their pride and self-sufficiency. Thank you for upsetting our
values and holding out the promise to us that you will raise us up with Jesus, and
that we may acclaim him as our Lord to give you glory for ever and ever.
***
Saint Bertilla
Feast Day November 5
Sometime in the mid-seventh century, St. Bertilla entered a
convent in France. Bertilla’s eighth-century biographer presented her as a
model of perfect obedience for nuns and monks. He fashioned the story of her
impeccable conduct to encourage them to conform eagerly to their rule of life.
But he heaped so much praise on Bertilla’s virtuous behavior that she seemed to
be more angelic than human. He did not succeed, however, in concealing
completely the real Bertilla:
Once, when a troubled sister spoke angry words to her,
Bertilla called down divine judgment upon her. Although the fault was forgiven,
Bertilla worried about her curse. Then the sister died unexpectedly, choked by
asthma. Not having heard the signal for the funeral, Bertilla asked the reason
for the resounding chorus of psalms. When she learned of the sister’s death,
she trembled fearfully. She hurried to the place where the little body lay
lifeless and with great faith laid her hand on the dead nun’s breast. Bertilla
ordered her receding soul through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, not to leave,
but before she spoke with him, to forgive her anger against her. And God
permitted the spirit that had left the body to return to the corpse. To the
amazement of all, the revived cadaver drew breath. Looking at the servant of
God, she said: “What have you done, sister? Why did you retrieve me from the
way of light?”
“I beg you sister,” said Bertilla humbly, “to give me words
of forgiveness, for once I cursed you when you had a troubled spirit.”
“May God forgive you,” said the nun. “I harbor no resentment
in my heart against you now and I love you. Please entreat God for me and
permit me to go in peace and don’t hold me back. For I am ready for the bright
road and now I cannot start without your permission.”
“Go then in the peace of Christ,” said Bertilla, “and pray
for me, sweet sister.”
Nestled among Bertilla’s virtues was a problem—anger so
strong that it could cause her to damn a sister. Her unpredictable behavior
endeared the saint to her charges, but also made them wary. They loved her,
writes the biographer cryptically, “when she was angry and feared when she
laughed.” As the saint aged she apparently overcame her flaw of anger, as her
reputation for humility and gentleness spread widely. She died around the year
700.
Bertilla’s story has a special interest for Christians who are fascinated with near-death experiences. The nun she called back from death spoke of “the way of light” and of “the bright road.” So this ancient account seems to corroborate the testimony of many twentieth-century witnesses who say they “died” and traveled along a pathway to the Light.
