Church of St. Joseph

TRANSFORMING WOUNDS

Jesus displays his wounds,
breathes the Spirit
and the disciples become forgivers.            John 20:20-23

To become a forgiving disciple
means to become like Jesus.
For that reason
he shares his Spirit
and shares his wounds.

To be a forgiver
the disciple must know the pains of wounds,
the wounds that come from hatred, rejection,
confrontation, conflict in life’s encounters.

The forgiver must know
what it is to be wounded
before substantial forgiveness can be offered.

The forgiver must also experience
the breath of the Spirit
that fills heart and mind
to be able to utter words
that carry holy forgiveness.

As long as the disciple stays in hiding
in an effort to be free of wounds and danger
the disciple will not be a forgiver,
will not breathe the Spirit,
will have no wounds to display.

O Jesus forgive me
for the times I have preferred to hide
rather than risk my hide for others.

By your grace I will accept wounds
if only I can breathe the Spirit
to bring healing and forgiveness to others.

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

It seems clear
that St. Peter learned
the fullness of forgiveness
when the risen Lord appeared in the upper room
and breathed the Holy Spirit on the disciples
who had abandoned and denied him short days ago,
declaring, “If you forgive sins
they are forgiven them;
if you hold them bound,
they are held bound.” John 20:23

I suspect the first to seek the forgiveness
with which Jesus had empowered his church
was St. Peter contrite and confessing his triple denial.
I feel confident he came to complete peace and compassion.

This seems evident
in the next encounter with the risen Lord.
“Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter. John 21:15
Peter does not hesitate,
he does not hang his head in shame
and say “how can I say I love you
when I denied you three times
a short while ago?”

No, rather Peter responds three times,
Each time more positively,
“Yes Lord I love you.” John 21:15,16,17
Peter was forgiven by the church, by Jesus.
He rebounds magnificently.
He was contrite but not crushed.
He recovered from his past sins
because Jesus shared forgiveness with the church.

Forgiveness made it possible for him
To declare to Jesus in integrity and honesty
“I love you … I love you … I love you.”

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

Jesus graces us
to have forgiving hearts
and to pray for forgiving hearts
that is the spirit of the Lord’s prayer.

The story of Jonah was about a reluctant prophet who did not have a forgiving heart. He was vindictive and even saddened that God would relent from punishment of their dread enemies, the Ninevites. God does not give up on Jonah but helps him accept the bigness of divine forgiveness even if he does it quite poorly. Jonah still knows that God knows best.

The task of the Church
is to be a reconciling church,
reconciling the various conflicts
that arise in a polarized, alienated society.

There are times when the church can be involved in a way that nobody else can. It is not only the “official” church, but each one of us that is “church” in our families, work, society.

Opportunities to reconcile
abound every day.
If we tend only to individualistic piety
we will ignore and dodge
the grace to be reconcilers.

How often have I steered clear of conflicts when I might have been a reconciler? I was saving my own skin but letting others suffer unattended.

Again I have been influenced by the privatizing of religion,
by separation movements that split people apart
and create islands of isolation and desolation.

The Lord’s prayer teaches differently, forgive and be forgiven, be forgiven and become a forgiver, be like “Our Father”. It may seem scary to enter the war zone of combat but not when we bring hearts made sacred by the fervor and assurance of “God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.”

- Fr. Gerald Keefe

“All of us, gazing on the Lord’s glory with unveiled faces, are being transformed from glory to glory into his very image by the Lord who is the Spirit.”

2 Corinthians 3:18

In the church of Neregi, near Skoplje, Yugoslavia, there is a fresco of the young apostle John caught up in a total contemplation of the transfiguration. It’s the work of an unknown artist painted in 1164.*

This fresco describes graphically and eloquently elements of contemplation. The apostle is the picture of relaxation and concentration. He is lying languidly on the ground like one called forth from a deep sleep yet at the same time this very lethargy contributes to the concentration of his spirit on the glory of the Lord. His eyes are large, luminous, transfixed on the divine reality before him. His concentration contributes to his relaxation. His relaxation ministers to his concentration. He is caught up in a circle of ecstatic contemplation that can only be broken by some outer word or touch. His body appears immobile, weightless, while his spirit is dynamically involved in the glory his eyes behold. He needs put forth no physical effort because the Father is drawing him freely and fully into the beauty of His Son. A graceful fold of his garment covers his left hand in modest reverence for the divine presence while his face remains unveiled in innocent, rapturous, open-eyed gaze. There are tinges of gold and gentle hues of orange and amber and green in the folds of his voluminous white garment. The deep gold nimbus that encircles the head of rich, russet hair suggests that he is entranced with an inner vision as well as an outer vision and his person must radiate the glory of a lustrous halo that is evidence of a divine indwelling. His youthful face, unconscious of its own beauty and radiance, gives expression to the psalm “I will go to the altar of God, the God of my gladness and joy.” He is clothed in celestial colors. The amber russet edges of the folds of his garment give hint of the fiery traceries of a glowing log that could burst into a flaming bush. There is a resurrection expectancy in the quiet yet vibrant body. The warmness of the paschal mystery envelopes the whole figure while he is being prepared to be baptized in the same bath of pain as afflicted Jesus.

This fresco depicts dramatically, colorfully, impressively a summit experience of contemplation. It encourages the believing viewer to be contemplative, to know some of the elements of contemplation. It tells the believer that contemplation is a divine mixture of relaxation and concentration, of stillness and staring that surrenders wholly to the Father’s magnetism in the mystic warmth of anticipated resurrection. It is entry into the paschal mystery. Though the believer may have only subdued and incipient moments of such contemplation he knows better how to identify these moments however subtle or strong they might be and to cherish them as part of the transformation that the Spirit of Jesus is working in his heart as he moves “from glory to glory into his very image.”

- Fr. Gerald Keefe