I write, speak, invest, network, and question to stimulate fruitful conversation. Let's talk about human flourishing! It begins with freedom. Holy leisure is the key to human being, freedom and generativity. Please join me in the adventure of realizing Christ!
SAR 10: The Sabbath Person
- The Sabbath has power, or potential to develop, or be more and more fully realized. I’ve read that Christ was born of Mary ‘like light moving through glass’, and this is the image in my mind of Sabbath ‘dawning’ as it grows more and more fully expressed in each person’s life, or practice. Sabbath also is power, or potential, in the sense that it quickens to life the person in whom it dawns. Another way to say it might be that, like fire or electricity it is power, and like a growing, becoming person, it has potential.
- The three ‘planes’ of man’s being (and, of course, there are many different ways to sort and give imagery to the aspects of man!) are: reaching toward eternity, living in the present moment, or ‘between’ time, and staying rooted in the earthly cycles of time, duty, tradition, and so on. From this perspective, Sabbath corresponds to the person, or has qualities of personhood: it is actually that eternity we are reaching toward (In the Mass we actually participate in the unending heavenly Liturgy!); it is also contained, in the Presence of Our Lord, within us – in every present moment we can step just outside time into the interior Tabernacle – this is the Sabbath we take away from the Mass and carry with us in the ‘between time’; and last, Sabbath is rooted, like we are, in the ordinary temporal cycle of time, and in the context of duty, tradition, and the created world.
- If we look at Sabbath through the lens of history, we see something old, something that seems to have been superseded by a greater good. It might feel like putting on a medieval costume to ‘put on’ Sabbath practices. If we view it through the lens of physical health, we see something that corresponds to the function of our bodies. Depending on how much we’ve come to view our bodies as well-oiled machines for getting things done, we might then adopt Sabbath practices with an eye toward pragmatism, and thus disrupt the focus on being-for-its-own-sake. If, instead, we see Sabbath through the lens of personhood (and find the high degree to which it seems to correspond, to be created for human persons), then we are more likely to understand the depths of Jesus’ counsel, “The Sabbath was made for man,” and eagerly receive the gift.
- The Cross is at the center of our personhood because only in Christ Crucified do we see the fully realized image of the perfectly free human being. If the ‘lens’ is adjusted to direct the ‘eye’ toward any other focal point, our vision will be distorted.
- ‘Knowing’ is related to worship because it is one of the purposes God intends to accomplish in man. (Man was created to know, to love, to serve God…)To give God His due, as we do in worship, (worthy is the Lamb who was slain!) we place ourselves at His disposal. ‘Not-knowing’ is our humble receptivity to knowing Him, and we bring it to Mass, to offer it as a vessel He fills with intimate knowledge of himself. Wonder is a ‘not-knowing’ – a position of receptivity, an emptiness that stands before something wonderful waiting to be filled. Sabbath is a waiting-to-be-acted-upon, a time of receptivity, a holy emptiness yearning toward the Eucharist for its fulfillment. The human person is, in his knowing of the world and of the Eucharistic Lord, knowing his Creator. He is, in his not-knowing, in his wonder at the world, in his Sabbath emptiness, a vessel shaped for the overflowing presence of the Lord.
- The capacity for joy is the capacity for wonder, and vice-versa! Wonder hungers, joy tastes, and then contemplation has ‘food’ for hours of pondering, digestion, absorption.
- Love is a form of suffering not just because the beloved might hurt you, but because you ‘take in’ the beloved, giving him space within yourself. The more fully you receive a person, the more you are affected by him – ache for his needs to be met, yearn toward the fulfillment of his destiny, bear his burdens, and feel a bit wounded by his beauty.
- The double-minded man is (according to Scripture) unstable in all he does. He is pulling against his own interests, against Christ’s full realization in himself, and against those whose hearts are entrusted to him.
- I definitely love myself, in part, by giving myself rest. I act in correspondence with the truth of my needs and the truth about my destiny (especially when I recognize my utter dependence upon the Lord by receiving Him in the Eucharist). Love for others starts with caring for their actual needs, loving them in truth, and helping them toward their own destiny in Christ. If we are to love others as we love ourselves, I suggest it begin by encouraging them to drink deeply of Sabbath rest!
- I can give myself more freely the more whole, integrated, single-minded and free I become. The human person, when free, yearns to give himself, and is fulfilled in self-donation (according to Pope John Paul II). Becoming more fully human, I become freer to realize that very longing in action.
You must be logged in to post a comment.