Pastor's Spiritual Reflections

By Fr. Leo Schneider (2/24/2008)

Dear People of Holy Name,

The Spirituality that shaped me as a youth was based in fear. It was drummed into us that if we sinned we’d go to hell. Obeying God was emphasized, but what I think was really being said is, “obey me.” None-the-less is was fear and the building up of fear to keep people in line, that was the currency of the spirituality I grew up in. As a result I lived in fear and became scrupulous. It wasn’t until much later in life that I came to know the love of a God who doesn’t condemn. St. Paul’s writings were helpful in my conversion.

In today’s second reading from Romans, Paul writes, “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8) In other places the scriptures makes it clear that Jesus did not come to condemn the world, but to save it. God is a God who is for us, not against. Faith in these words removes fear from our relationship with God and gives us a most intimate companion to journey through life with.

Over and over the scriptures make the point that it is precisely the sinner and the marginalized that God seeks to make whole and full of life. In Luke’s gospel, the shepherds are first to know of the birth of Jesus the Christ. It is the Samaritan, an outcast, who shows compassion, convicting the Jewish tradition itself. Today’s gospel gives us the magnificent story of the woman at the well. She too was a Samaritan and also a woman marginalized by her sex and her adulterous affairs. She comes alone to the well in the heat of the day for a reason.

None-the-less, it is this woman who brings Christ to her community. Like the woman in the gospel, Christ isn’t holding our sins against us making it a debt we owe him. Christ is concerned about our happiness and wants to remove the unhealthy things in our lives that keep us from sharing fully in his joy. This is the opposite of condemnation. For condemnation denies the purpose of Jesus’ incarnation and the power of God to transform our lives.

Ultimately conversion is about growing closer to the Lord, which is the result of becoming more whole as God’s spirit lives in us and us in God. This is true holiness which casts out fear with love, despair with hope and guilt with joy. As we celebrate the woman at the well this weekend and come to the table of the Lord, we are being invited again to drink fully of the life-giving water, which is God in Christ, poured out for is in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Imagine yourself at the well today. What fears might you have as you come before the Lord? What things in your past do you hold against yourself or you feel others hold against you? What in your heart separates you from others or from being happy in yourself?

Then, image the Lord before you, who knows everything you ever did and still loves you for the goodness you can not see in yourself. Hear Christ invite you to share fully in his life, without debt or guilt, but with a profound sense of inner peace and confidence in your own goodness. Drink of his love and let his love be your hope for the future and the basis of your trust in his continued presence in your life. Today you are the one he chooses to make himself known in this world and in the lives of those around you. You are his chosen, his beloved!

The Lord knows everything we do and knows what we need before we ask him. Our best prayer is to open our hearts to the Lord, trusting in his love for us and in the gift of his Holy Spirit, that will be our strength and our life in all things. God is for us, not against. Faith in his love, casts out fear and brings us peace. For this let us pray in this Lenten season, that in Easter our joy may be full and our joy complete, now and in our own final resurrection from sin and death.

Let us keep each other in our prayers.

In Christ's Peace, Fr. Leo