In Irish folklore, on October 31, the dead were thought to come back to life and so ghosts, witches, black cats and demons were thought to be roaming about that evening. Bonfires were lit to scare away evil spirits.
Irish American immigrants in the 19th century popularized Halloween as we know it, asking for treats or threatening tricks. It’s a night of spookiness, so make sure your children/grandchildren are safe if they go trick or treating.
I have one story. A boy said to his great uncle, who was sort of a “curmudgeon”: “Uncle Joey, I’m so happy to see you. Now daddy will do the trick he promised us.” The uncle was curious. “What trick is that?” he asked. The boy answered: “I heard daddy tell mommy he would climb the walls if you came for supper.” Yes, be careful: youngsters tell it the way they hear it.
The word of God carries us back in our imaginations to the wisdom literature of ancient Israel, the book of Sirach, written probably in the second century before Jesus. The book is about the art of living well in the best sense of the phrase. Hard work, honesty, integrity, compassion, responsibility, courage, and faith in God are the true measure of one’s character.
Here the author says God has no favorites. He goes on to tell us that God definitely hears our prayers, especially those with no one to advocate for them.
But does He? God doesn’t seem to hear the prayers of families caught up in the senseless violence of Syria, for example. Nor does God seem to hear our own prayers sometimes, when we pray for a specific need. And yet, in the midst of God’s apparent silence, our faith challenges to trust ever more deeply in God’s unconditional love for us. He “has our back,” so to speak. In fact, God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.
In the Gospel according to Luke, we have the odd couple. The pharisee is full of himself: he fasted; he paid tithes; he kept the law. He thought that his laundry list of good works made him pleasing to God. But he was ego centered. EGO stands for “easing God out.”
But the tax collector here recognized his dependency upon God’s mercy. Tax collectors in the first century were generally judged by Jews as traitors or collaborators and detested by the Romans for pocketing money that could have been theirs. But the prayer of the tax collector was God centered, not ego centered. He knew that he was a flawed human being, less than perfect, less than forgiving. He prayed for God’s mercy. He is a model of prayer for us, says Jesus.
Paul, in his letter to Timothy, uses the imagery of sports to describe his own life and ministry, saying, “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith; I will inherit the victor’s crown as winners did in the games of ancient Greece and Rome.” Despite many obstacles, Paul stays the course, preaching the Gospel in season and out of season. He urges us to do likewise: stay the course.
What fascinated me is St. Paul’s reflections about his life. Paul, we know, was well educated in Judaism and Greco-Roman philosophy. He had been a firebrand, a rabid persecutor of Christians. But Paul was suddenly blinded by a light from heaven on his way to Damascus. That awesome visionary experience of the risen Christ turned Paul’s life upside down. He became God’s chosen instrument to the non-Jews, one of the greatest evangelizers in Christianity. Paul was captivated by the most amazing event in the history of civilizations: Jesus Christ is gloriously alive.
Often controversial but always self-confident, Paul lived a purposeful life. This religious genius established Christian faith communities throughout the eastern Mediterranean, authored letters that shaped the history of Christian thought, and eventually was beheaded by order of the Emperor Nero. But what was the secret to his purpose-driven life?
I like to think Paul, well versed in philosophy, had a keen insight into what makes human beings tick. Everyone yearns for happiness. That desire is universal. That’s why we often do things that we think will make us happy, only to discover that they end up making us miserable. We confuse “pleasure” with “happiness.”
Etched into Paul’s vision of human beings were the words of Jesus: “I have come so that they may have life and have it more abundantly.” For Paul, discipline is the path that leads to the fullness of life. Think about it. When we eat well, exercise often, and sleep regularly, we feel more fully alive physically. When we love, when we give priority to our significant relationships, when we give of ourselves to help others, we feel more fully alive emotionally. When we study the achievements and marvels of the human spirit in various cultures, our world expands, and we feel more fully alive intellectually. And when we take a few moments each day to come before God in prayer, humbly and openly, we experience more fully the transcendent dimension of our lives, the spiritual.
All of these endeavors require discipline. Discipline sets us free to attain our ultimate purpose: eternal life with God. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever we want but is the strength of character to do what is good, true, noble, and right. Freedom is indeed a prerequisite for love.
Paul grasped this and preached that Christ came to reconcile us with the Father, and in doing so, Christ satisfies the craving for happiness that preoccupies our human hearts. It is ultimately a yearning for friendship and intimacy and relationship with our all-good Creator. Augustine’s words in the fifth century echo anew in every place, in every time, and in every heart: “Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, Lord.” Christ, for Paul, is indeed “the way, the truth, and the life.”
Remember: we shall pass through this world but once. Be a missionary disciple like Paul. Any good that we can do or any kindness that we can show, let us do so today.
