HTS PT1 Beloved Sonship

Receptive love is foundational to identity, spirituality, and ministry
- Before a priest can be a spiritual father, he must learn what it means to be a spiritual son (identity)
  - Called and then sent
  - Disciple and then apostle
- Separation from this identity causes "workoholism" and burnout

We should spend some time every day (ideally in the morning) resting in our identity as beloved sons, priest or not!

Identity

We're all sinners, but the Father doesn't see us that way.

We are not the sum of our weaknesses . . . but the sum of the Father's love.Pope St. John Paul II

We are

Beloved sons
Saints in the making

This starts at our baptism

"Your baby has to die ... to rise to new life in Christ"
- From "Trinitarian Creature" to "Adopted Son"

Receptive Love

Men are wired to provide, fix, do stuff; not very good at receiving love.
God has first loved us, and we can't give what we don't have.
Do you let God love you?
Everything we do is (should be) a response to what God has done for us: his love should "overflow" in us into our response(s)

The Parable of the Prodigal Son

Neither son has it right: neither can properly receive the Father's love.
- Younger gives up and indulges in sin rebelliously
- Older son tries to earn it through moral perfectionism, self-righteousness, and keeping busy
Many priests suffer the "Older son syndrome"
- Issue not so much with jealousy at younger son, but with himself
- Father says "You are with me always. Everything I have is yours," i.e., everything has already been given to him; he just hasn't accepted it.
- Jesus says to his disciples, "All that the Father has, he has given me"

Prayer

No "right" way to pray... plenty of wrong ways, though
- God calls us all differently, it's natural to expect to respond differently
"In the wounded heart of the Son"
- Philosophy speaks of intellect and will to know and choose good, correspondingly, but where is the heart?
- Anthropologically, the Bible says the Heart is the center of the person in which is found intellect, will, memory, affect, emotion
- Thus the "Heart of God" is the source from which and target into which God pours his love
- Jesus' heart was wounded by our sins manifested in the lance that pierced his side
  - And now we rest/remain in the love of his wounded heart
    - As the Father has loved me, so I love you; remain in my love (Jn 15:9)
  - "Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart more like yours"
Spiritual perfectionism is never productive
- We're meant to be receivers, not doers; God does all the doing

The Vessel of Mercy by Pope Francis

Love

God's love is passionate desire
- Imagery of marriage all over the place in scripture (e.g., Is 62)
God's love is eros ("erotic") and agape (self-sacrificial)
- We tend to think God loves in the latter sense alone, but Pope Benedict invites us to pause on the former
- OT describes unfaithfulness as prostitution
- Both types of love revealed on the Cross
  - agape is obviously apparent
  - erose revealed in his thirst for our love: "I thirst", (La. sitio)
- God goes to any length of agape to procure union with us (eros)... even to the cross
  - Rejection of this love is what breaks/wounds his heart
  - the word used in Hosea 11:8 (הָפַךְ; hâp̱aḵ; h2015) is the same one used in reference to Sodom and Gomorrah: expresses total collapse

The Sacred Heart of Jesus

We seek a human heart to which we can relate
at the same time, we seek an all-powerful heart that can draw us out of our fallen state
Both of the above are satisfied in the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Our goal should be to make his heart our very own:

O Sacred Heart of Jesus, I choose you as my only refuge. Be to me strength in conflict, the support of my weakness, a light and a guide in the darkness of this life, and finally atonement for all my faults and the sanctification of of my desires and actions. I unite mine with yours and offer them to you, in order that you may come to me to unite me to yourself. Amen.St. Margret Mary

Littleness

not pusillanimity, but a child-like trust

If we do not possess child-like trust and faith, we fall into the trap of the world:
- we seek importance, bigness, etc.
- we start comparing ourselves with others: the direct work of Satan.
Spiritual "abandonment"
- Not despair, but realizing that the ultimate plan is out of our hands
- We are only instruments in God's design
Five loaves and two fish
- "Grace makes of all our littleness the communion that satisfies the People" (Pope Benedict XVI)
- "God says, 'I can do whatever I want with them'" (Fr. Swift)

Beloved sonship leads to service and pastoral charity.

Obstacles

Saturday 2019-10-26 formation workshop

All of us carry psychological wounds:
- foremost core wound is from original sin
- events from childhood: nobody's parents are perfect, and even the smallest event could have a wounding effect on a boy's life.
Father has largest wounding effect on boy
- boy needs to hear affirmation and spend time with father
- father can be absent, emotionally/verbally/physically abusive, etc.
wounds prevent us from receiving God's love
- they might manifest themselves in strange ways in a boy's future as he continues to mature
Coping mechanisms to deal with life's hardships that last beyond what they should
- "false scripts" that play in our subconscious self by which we continue to live
- "pain storage" lasts forever in the brain
- shame vs guilt:
  - guilt relates to "I did something bad"
  - shame relates to "I am something bad"

Look on handout for:

rejection
shame
confusion
powerlessness

Being Fathered

Jesus' human nature was fulfilled in his beloved sonship with the Father.
Our fulfillment should have been initiated through our earthly Father
but this unfortunately seldom happens
as a result, we become psychologically wounded
and therefore in need of healing

Just as we received our name from our earthly father, we need to "receive our name" from our heavenly Father

knowledge of vs about something
Happens through process of initiation
Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the victor I shall give some of the hidden manna; I shall also give a white amulet upon which is inscribed a new name, which no one knows except the one who receives it. Rev 2:17
- The hidden manna: this is the food of life; cf. Ps 78:24-25.
- White amulet: literally, "white stone," on which was written a magical name, whose power could be tapped by one who knew the secret name. It is used here as a symbol of victory and joy; cf. Rev 3:4-5.
- New name: this is a reference to the Christian’s rebirth in Christ; cf. Rev 3:12; Rev 19:12; Is 62:2; Is 65:15.

God is leading us on a journey

in order to start, we have to leave a lot behind
When things gets tough, we start asking questions
- We want to ask "why?", but we should ask "what?" → "What are you trying to show me?" "What do you want me to let go of?"

Healing

We have tragedies in life, but we have an even more tragic way of handling them
- Any wound that is ignored or denied cannot be healed.
healing begins with being able to "weep" about the wound
- God has a way of "poking us where it hurts"
- We must let go of our (false) psyche in order to save our true self (Mt 16:24-26)

Common Themes/Steps

Surrender completely to God
- ask God what he thinks of us
- stick with this question until you get an answer
- something like "A good man with a good heart"
Invite Jesus into our woundedness
Grieving: realize we are wounded and that it is not our fault
Remain in God's love
Forgiveness: forgive those who have wounded us (esp. ourselves)

all of these sound so platitudinous...