Family Interaction in Faith

This is what Jesus had to say concerning family ties:

“Whoever loves father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

We can read Jesus statement in the context of our endurance for sorrow. Would we turn against God if something happened to our loved ones? If instead we would ask for help, maybe we would feel less alone. 
I can almost hear the answer I would have given a few years ago to what I’ve just said: How could an abstract entity help us face the pain? Why should we fool ourselves with heavenly tales? But today I suggest that we try to ask for inner strength. I don’t know how it happens, but we’ll become stronger.                                                                  

As I’ve said before, my father lost all his possessions because of wrong investments in Yemen. It was very difficult for my mom to adapt to the new situation, and she was never able to renounce all her habits. I couldn’t help but finding her a little immature, although she had a big heart and was a good mother. She was the only one in my family who was professing religion, and this is one of the reasons why I never took it seriously. Even as a teen-ager, I thought that if my mother believed in the gospels, they were probably fairy tales.

My father, on the other hand, never spoke about faith. He used to accompany my mom to mass every 

Sunday, but he never ventured inside the church. Instead, he waited for her at the café’ across the street. 

We children were definitely getting mixed signals. At any rate, we were the rebellious type, and I’m sure that 

if both our parents had tried to talk us into  going to church we would have refused flatly. But later in life, 

both my brother and my sister became devout Christians. I started wondering if I was the only one left in the 

family who wasn’t religious, so one day I asked my dad if he believed in God.

"Absolutely", was his laconic reply. He never said another word about it.

Now I wonder how my son sees my sudden interest in Jesus. I’m afraid that I’m not a better role model to 

him than my mother was to me, although for different reasons. Some time ago he said to me:

“You didn’t know how to live. Religion is for people like you, who can’t cope with life.”

“You’re right,” I answered, “I couldn’t take a hold of my life. But this should make you understand how 

powerful the encounter with Jesus has been for me. I hated myself because your father and I were making 

you suffer, yet I was unable to change our interaction for years. Now you can see that I’m different.”

                                                                                                                                  

I suspect that today he understands that being good is a pattern among Christians. He fell for a catholic girl!

Jesus as a Tangible Presence

If I may, I would like to say a word of encouragement to those who are having difficulties keeping their faith alive.                                                                                                                                             

The line between the perception of Jesus as present here and now or as an abstract entity is often blurred. There are going to be moments when you are distracted by your everyday life, and in those moments, if you are inclined to doubt, you’ll think that you are pursuing something that is not real, not even in your heart. If you wish to overcome your fear of self-deception, don’t try to force your mind to some kind of transcendent experience, because you might still doubt its authenticity. Instead, look at how Jesus has affected your life. If you have learned to be compassionate, if you are resilient in the face of adversities, if you are more joyful, then you can recognize his presence from a rational point of view. You want to keep your dignity as a rational being, and you can do that by paying attention to your responses to the world. If they are changing, he’s with you. Open your mind, don’t be afraid of being deceived by your own feelings.

Jesus said: “I’ll be with you, always,” and if you give yourself time, you’ll perceive  him not as someone who lived long ago and is separate from you by the barrier of time, but as someone who is sharing your life. St. Augustine said that he is more interior to you than you are to yourself.                                                                                 

If you have an intuition of a reality beyond the material one, don’t dismiss it. Don’t be afraid of having to give up too much if you follow this path and it leads to Jesus, because you’ll gain instead. He said that his yoke is light. If you open your heart to him, you’ll see that God is not so hidden after all, nor He intends to be. You can listen to Him through Jesus’ words. 

Love has an enormous healing power, and the first ones to be healed will be you. I wish my son could be healed too. He’s afraid of death, terrified at the idea of dissolving into nothingness. Some time ago he told me:

"I hope that you’re right about the afterlife, I hope we are going to go on living. But if we meet up there, I’ll keep telling you that your way of reasoning was wrong, because you believed in God without evidence.”

“If we meet up there,” I answered, “I’ll just say: ‘See? I told you!”

We had this conversation during one of our long walks from home to the university campus. We always follow the same route and have the same conversation: He denies, I affirm. But lately I have the feeling that Jesus is with us, walking next to me and smiling. I’m between the two of them, loving them both, waiting for the right moment to take one step back and let the two of them walk side by side.

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Love Your Neighbour

In my early twenties I was working in my father’s company when he lost all his money because of some wrong investments in North Yemen. He had already decided to declare bankruptcy, but it was an extremely difficult decision for him, because he identified himself completely with his professional life. He knocked at my door and asked me if we could carry on a little longer. I slammed the door in his face. I was mad at him for his failure. The memory of my gesture haunted me for years, until one day, some twenty-five years later, I told him how I felt.

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said. “I don’t remember.”

He had forgotten, that is to say he had forgiven me a long time ago. At that moment I made peace with myself. I still think that my reaction was cruel, but at least now I now that I didn’t hurt him so much that he could not forget.                                            

However, the sense of guilt generated by this episode didn’t cure me of my selfishness. My son was the first and only person for whom I made sacrifices. I was incapable of loving anybody else in the same disinterested way. 

It was only after my conversion that I started to change. I decided to work once a week as a volunteer, feeding the poor. They gather every day in the basement of the local church and take turns sitting around a large table, waiting to be served a hot meal. People tell their stories and cry over their troubles, or remain silent, unwilling to share.  Many have small children, who chirp around the table like little birds, asking for more dessert. 

I had been there only a few times when, on a cold winter day, I had a chance to offer a new coat to a man dressed in ragged clothes. He declined, stating that he liked what he was wearing. I couldn’t help laughing: How could he like a jacket that was ripped off from top to bottom? A few days later I met that man on the street and I said hallo. He was acting in a strange way, and only then I realized that he was mentally unwell. I got scared and walked away as fast as I could. This episode made me reflect upon my attitude towards mental illness. Back in Italy, when I was in my thirties, I had cut off my relationship with two aunts, with whom I was very close, because I couldn’t deal with their erratic behavior. One of them had developed Alzheimer’s disease and was constantly calling me on the phone. The other one, who suffered from bipolar disorder, had suddenly stopped taking her medications. I changed my telephone number and disappeared from their lives: I didn’t want to be bothered. But this time I was moved by a stranger and I wanted to know more about him. I learned that he was a Vietnam veteran and believed in the existence of twenty-three hells. I’m sure he had seen plenty of them during that war, and they still haunt him. Now I call him by name and we talk whenever he’s in the mood. Behind that mane of white hair and that un-kept beard there is one of the sweetest persons I’ve ever met, a person who lost his mind because he didn’t want to kill.     

Today my husband is the main beneficiary of my conversion. Lucky for him, I’ve become so kind and forgiving that I almost don’t recognize myself. Unfortunately, he’s not willing to admit that I’m so much nicer  thanks to Jesus’ love. He thinks it’s because I’m aging, or because of whatever other silly reasons he can come up with. Yet, after twenty-five years of the same interaction between us, he’s learning to respond to the new me in a more loving way. Jesus has done for me what no one else has been able to do. This new faith is something powerful enough not to be dismissed as an illusion. 

I was only a couple of months into the process of getting to know Jesus when I read the first scholarly texts that depicted him as a failed prophet, but I went on in my search simply because I couldn’t let go. What was it exactly that I couldn’t let go of? It wasn’t the consolation that religion offers, and the curiosity about Jesus was only part of the reason for my perseverance. The truth is that I couldn’t let go of the new me. From the outside I’m the same person, only nicer, but inside I’ve changed. It’s not easy to change when you have repeated the same patterns for a lifetime. I had lived in a certain way for fifty years and in a different way for two months: Why was it so difficult to go back where I was? Because Jesus had become a tangible presence in my life. Today this feeling is even stronger, and by now I can only acknowledge that the irrational thing to do would be to deny him.

Reflections Under The Christmas Tree

I just came back from the Christmas' Eve Mass, which I love because I know all the songs and I can sing along! It was the children's mass, some of them sang and there were many babies dressed just like dolls...so cute! I've felt Jesus' love and I've prayed for the well being of my loved ones, knowing that he will take care of all human beings.

Did Jesus’ followers feel the love emanating from his person? Could he heal the sick through the power of his love? Many times in the Gospels Jesus says to those who are healed that their faith brought them back to health. Their sudden recovery, I believe, was not a reward to their faith, but its natural outcome. According to the evangelists, Jesus “was not able to perform any mighty deeds” in his hometown, because the people did not believe in him. He was unable to heal unless a wave of complete trust flowed between him and the seeker. Only those who went to him in desperation and certitude at the same time were healed, out of mutual love.

Jesus often speaks about the heart: Perhaps he could create feelings of love and compassion so strong that he could literally rearrange the physical matter. I often have the feeling that he “rearranges” my thoughts, my behavior and even the events that take place in my life. For example, considering how irresponsibly my husband and I have led our lives, it’s a miracle we still have a roof above our heads. In a certain sense we lived as Jesus preached, not worrying about tomorrow. I couldn't resist the appeal of an adventurous life with a man who pushed me over the edge, When I fell for my husband my friends asked me why I had ended an apparently perfect marriage to run to America with a difficult man, facing an uncertain future. My parents just couldn’t get over it. Well, I did it out of boredom. I had come to believe, since it had happened in all my relationships, that I couldn’t last with any man because I would invariably get bored sooner or later. I wasn’t happy about this, for I wanted true love and a child. I had a feeling that he was crazy enough to keep me interested, so I decided to leave everything behind.                                                                                          

We bought two plane tickets to New York, via Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia. When we reached Dubrovnik, my future husband, pale as a ghost, got up from his plane seat and said to me:

“If you love me, you’ll get off this plane with me right now.”

He had been to America before, but always by boat. The mere idea of flying terrified him, however he thought he would give it a try. I said “Sure!” and followed him right on to the Yugoslavian land. Dubrovnik is a fascinating town on the Adriatic sea and we ended up having a wonderful time, giving very little thought to the fact that our resources were dissolving like mist in the sun.

Officially, we kept looking for a ship that would take us to America. After a while we heard that such a ship would leave from Hamburg, Germany. We happily boarded a train and reached Hamburg, only to find out that we had to go to England instead, and take the Queen Elizabeth to New York. Now, the Queen Elizabeth is a very expensive way of crossing the ocean. When finally reached Miami, our final destination, we were completely broke! 
 

According to Jesus, we don’t need to store treasures: God will provide for us. To the rich man who asked him how to gain eternal life, Jesus answered that he should give all his possessions to the poor and follow him. When the man left, Jesus turned to his disciples and said:

“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter  the kingdom of God.”

Upon hearing this statement the apostles were scandalized. The Jews, maybe on the basis of a superficial reading of Deuteronomy, assumed that wealth was a sign of Yahweh’s favor, but Jesus turned this assumption on its head.   
But what does the establishment has to make of this today? Jesus didn’t give precise rules about money. He never asked his disciples to give up their possessions, like he did with the hypocritical rich man. The apostles had to leave behind their homes and follow him, although family and property carried for ancient Jews religious and cultural significance. To other disciples Jesus demanded only support and hospitality, so it seems that his attitude towards money was one of relegating it where it belonged, that is at the bottom of the scale of human values. If achieving wealth absorbs all our energy, then money is evil.

But we all agree that a Christmas without money is a sad Christmas. Let's not obsess over this incongruence, let's take the birth of Jesus also as a celebration of the abundant life He promised us. And now...you will  excuse me if I stop writing. I'm going to have a wonderful Italian dinner and open all those colorful packages that are sitting under the Christmas' tree. But at midnight, we won't forget to put the Baby Jesus in the manger.