19 February 2014 - perseverance par excellence

19 February 2014 - perseverance par excellence

Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.
For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer,
he is like a man who looks at his own face in a mirror.
He sees himself, then goes off and promptly forgets
what he looked like.

When we hear the word we begin to see.  We are like the blind man that the people bring to touch Jesus.  At first he cannot see clearly.  He sees "people looking like trees and walking."  Simply hearing the word isn't enough to understand the word.  We risk deceiving our hearts with a religion that is vain.  This word comes alive when we live it.  This word enlightens us when act on it, not just once, but when we persevere. 

But the one who peers into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres,
and is not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts;
such a one shall be blessed in what he does.

Just as the blind man has to wait for the second touch of Jesus to begin to see things as they are so to do we need to persevere in our relationship with him.  When we see him we see the "perfect law of freedom" which can be found nowhere else.  Yet we do not experience the freedom all at once.  We recognize that healing is a process.  Wisdom is a process.  It is a process that we live in relationship.  And if we don't see clearly, if we have trouble remembering who we are, we need Jesus to lay his hands on our eyes a second time.  He wants to restore our sight so that we can "see everything distinctly."  This is a gift of the Holy Spirit: discernment.

When we say that we must act on the word to understand it we tend to think that puts the ball back in our court.  We think that means that our effort takes priority.  But this is not the case.  The blind man shows us that the perseverance entailed in acting on the word only happens in relationship with Jesus.  We can't just strain our eyes until the trees resolve into true vision.  And until then we are still likely to stumble and fall.  We must wait for Jesus to touch us a second time, a third time, or as many times as it takes to see clearly.

Jesus himself is the light that lets us see clearly.  Only in that light can we avoid the pitfalls in our paths and keep ourselves "unstained by the world."   In the light of Jesus we see his face on the faces of orphans and widows.  How can we walk in justice without this light?  We can't possibly understand the dignity of others without his light.  He himself is the truth that we think and treasure in our hearts just as Mary does (cf. Luk 2:19).  This contemplation by Mary is perseverance par excellence.  It allows us to walk blamelessly, to do justice, and ultimately to live on the LORD's holy mountain.  

He who does these things
shall never be disturbed.

And if we are disturbed we must ask ourselves, are we doing these things?  Without the light of Jesus, the perfect law of freedom, we will lack the discernment to know if we are our not.  He is ready to heal us.  He wants us to see everything distinctly.  He is calling us on to his holy mountain to live with him forever.