Transcript of Abbot Clement’s Talk on Monday, May 5, 2003
What is my purpose I here? Why am I on earth? Most of us, when we answer this question, give an answer based on our cumulative life experiences and a lot of times our answer starts with ourselves. We look at our talent and our history. Then we choose accordingly. But the real issue is deeper than that.
Andrei Bitov lived under the communists in Russia. He is a 27- year- old novelist. All of a sudden he experiences total despair. It is dark. He has no meaning in his life, and as he struggles with this all of a sudden he hears
in hes heart that life has no meaning without God. He allows that reality to penetrate his consciousness, and he begins to live for God. His life awakens.If we put it another way we could say, "What really drives you?" What makes you get up in the morning? What makes you stay with it throughout the day? For a lot of people it’s their guilt. They have messed up part of their lives and they still struggle with their guilt. They punish themselves. They do all kinds of strange things. Yet the Lord doesn’t want them to live that way.
There are passages in Scripture that make it clear that "Blessed is the person whom the Lord has forgiven." The Lord wants them to forgive themselves and to move forward. Of course there are many of other examples in the lives of saints. The Little Flower used to say that if she was the worst sinner in the world, she would run and throw herself into the arms of the Father.
For others, it’s resentment and anger. They’ve been hurt. There’s no doubt about it. They respond with anger. There are two forms of that anger. One is explosive and expressive. The other form of anger is resentment or depression; anger turned inward. God doesn’t want this. He died and rose and accomplished victory over sin. We know that there are Scriptural passages that invite us to come, to ask pardon, and to receive God’s forgiveness, so much so that God rejoices over one repentant sinner more than He rejoices over the just. Really, we are all sinners. God wants to be happy with all of us as we repent and turn back to Him.
There are lots of people who think that what counts is to get more things, especially more money. Every time you watch T.V., for example the news, or read about different tragedies in the paper, it’s clear that there is no security in things and in money. There is only one security. Our only security rests in God.
What exactly is your relationship with God? Are you doing what He sent you here to do and to be? The real issue is difficult for us to understand. Particularly at Easter time, it seems to me that our awareness should be heightened in knowing why we are here. Not only that, our awareness should be strengthened and more passionate. The real issue is what does it mean to be a Christian in the Easter season? It is a question of a much livelier faith. The hymns we sing are beautiful examples of our livelier faith. These hymns are absolutely gorgeous. The one hymn I’m thinking of is called: I Know That My Redeemer Lives. I’m just happy Jesus lives. Well, obviously it doesn’t mean like this candle here. The first verse ends, "He’s my everlasting head." So He’s not just existing. I’m connected to Him. He’s enlightening me. Do I really believe this? It was nice to have a party last Saturday, and to see all those people supporting Benedictine High School. It was nice to have them in our midst. They live. But they’re active toward us. How much more the resurrected Jesus is active toward us.
The hymn’s second verse goes, "He blesses us with His love and He lives to plead for me from above." Two things. First, Jesus is now a life giving spirit. Every time we encounter Him, He blesses us. The second part of that verse speaks to the priesthood of Jesus. He is interceding for us before the Father. The Father has to answer Him because in His whole life He did the Father’s will. So now the Father is very happy to glorify the Son, and He answers Him. Do you believe this?
We certainly all know that Jesus feeds us. But do we really believe that He helps us in times of need? And do we turn to Him to the point that we receive His help so that we know that He is alive and He’s relating to us? The third verse of this hymn goes: "He grants me daily breath." This is the awareness that Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, and now in His humanity He is united with the Trinity; and therefore, He is the source of everything in us. Because of this, we shall conquer death. We should have evidences of that insofar as we are growing and overcoming our weaknesses, and failures, and being more alive. " He lives my mansion to prepare," goes the hymn. " He lives to bring me safely there." He is doing something again. He is not just alive. This is not something just between Him and the Father, it is between us and Jesus and the Father.
Where do I sense that Jesus is moving me into the heavenly kingdom? It is what our faith teaches us. That is why we have hope, even joy, because we know that in the events of our lives, if we really read them correctly, it is a movement toward the Father’s mansions. Jesus is our Savior, the same Savior we read about in the gospels. This gives us the same compassion, patience, and strength that He gave the apostles; everything we see and much more, because we don’t see everything that is available to us. We need to show why we need to be converted. If I don’t get to the point where I don’t have at least a certain amount of sadness when I see people sin, or I read articles in the paper where people are devastated by sinfulness am I really getting closer to Jesus? Am I upset, at least to some degree, that sin still grips so many people when they could have such a peaceful, harmonious, and alive life? They don’t know God. If they know God, they don’t know Jesus, and we should sense that. We certainly should sense where God is offended and even willingly make reparation. This is a sign that we are getting closer to Jesus; that the things in His heart are the things in our heart. We have reason to have great hope because Jesus came precisely to enable us to share His approach to life. He is giving us His life and all the gifts of the Spirit so that we can be transformed into that same passionate love He has for the Father and for all mankind.