Down deep - don't we all - want to be remembered somehow - by someone - some way - in time? By a spouse, a child, a grandchild, by a book, a poem, a painting, a song, a carving in a tree, a street or road named after us, a gravestone, initials in cement, graffiti, a stained glass window with our name on it, a namesake, a plaque, a blog. Me?????????????????????????????????
Down, down, down deep, I just want to know God knows me, loves me and won't let me slip into non existence - forever and ever. Amen.
The title of my homily for this 14th Monday in
Ordinary Time is, “Steps.”
FIRST READING
In today’s first reading from Genesis 28: 10-22a, there is mention of a stairway to heaven.
It’s also called Jacob’s Ladder.
In a dream Jacob sees a stairway that rests on the ground
- and its top reaches to the heavens. He sees God’s messengers going up and
down on that staircase.
METAPHOR OR
IMAGE
In various religions and philosophies - the ladder or
steps or a staircase has often been a metaphor of growth - a step at a time. We've all heard teachers, coaches, parents, urge us to be better, climb higher. We've all heard the cry, "Excelsior!" I love it that it means, "Excell!" - but it also means wood shavings that served as stuffing for matresses. To me the laugh is, when striving for greatness, be aware of being humble and not being inflated while climbing the top step to receive the first prize for winning it all. Jesus put it this way, "The first shall be last!" When his disciples wanted to be on his right and left in the kingdom, Jesus warned them about wanting to be great. Rather strive to serve others. [Cf. Matthew 20:21-28.]
So steps and striving for holiness is great - but sometimes the silent secret is to step down or into the background. I have a collection of these various steps in my work in
teaching spirituality. CLASSIC 3
STEPS: PURGATIVE, ILLUMINATIVE, UNITIVE WAY
The class 3 steps are the so called: Purgative,
Illuminative and Unitive way.
We clean out the room. We fill it with food. We invite
God or others in for communion. The
first step in growth is cleansing ourselves of sin or bad habits. The second
step is taking on the positive after cleansing ourselves of the negatives and
then comes the third step: union with God. [1]
JOHN CLIMACUS -
30 RUNG LADDER
In Eastern Orthodox Spirituality one finds the famous
John Climacus and The Ladder of Divine Ascent. John Climacus was a 7th
Century Christian monk on Mount Sinai.
It has 30 steps. The first 7 steps present 7 general
virtues to climb for a richer ascetic or spiritual life. The next 19 steps deal
with overcoming vices and the corresponding virtues to acquire. The next 4 are
the higher virtues that help us reach the top. The top rung - Love - Agape - is
beyond prayer and stillness and apathy.
Check it out on Google and look at the pictures of angels
helping people to climb that ladder and demons shooting arrows and trying to
pull people off the ladder. [2]
GUIGO II - THE
LADDER TO PARADISE - 4 RUNGS
Check out Guigo II, a Carthusian monk - who died either 1188 or 1193 - who wrote about the 4 step method of prayer - that has been taught in
many retreat houses and conferences on prayer. He called it The Ladder to
Paradise [Scala Paradiso or Scala Claustralium]. Guigo II starts with Jacob’s ladder in
today’s first reading and says this is a good way to pray:
·Lectio
- Read the sacred scripture
·Meditatio
- Think about what you read
·Oratio -
Pray, talk to God about what you’re thinking - what hits you.
·Contemplatio
- Become quiet, let it sink in, deepen. [3]
ALCOHOLICS
ANONYMOUS
Many people have heard about the 12 Steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous. [4]
I remember someone talking about the 12 steps that led up
to Dr. Bob’s house in Akron Ohio. It’s
true but I don’t know if they were in the original house.
Since
the number 12 is key to the program, there are 12 steps leading to the front
door of Dr. Bob’s home.
I
did find the following in some notes about Dr. Bob’s house on 855 Ardmore
Avenue in Akron, Ohio. “The original house had 11 corner slats in the floor of
the dining room and 13 in the living room and now there are 12 in both rooms ….
This change was made as a labor of love by another one of the volunteers at the
home.”
Here are the 12 Steps. They are also used for other
addictions, food, drugs, sex, etc.
1.We
admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2.Came
to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3.Made
a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we
understood Him.
4.Made
a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5.Admitted
to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our
wrongs.
6.Were
entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7.Humbly
asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8.Made
a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them
all.
9.Made
direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would
injure them or others.
10.Continued to take personal inventory and when we
were wrong promptly admitted it.
11.Sought through prayer and meditation to improve
our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge
of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12.Having had a spiritual awakening as the result
of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice
these principles in all our affairs.
THE 8 SECRETS
OF HAPPINESS
I’ve been working on a book entitled, “The 8 Secrets of
Happiness.”
I’ll get it done some day. I put a lot of work into it
already, but I’m not rushing - because I have other books in progress and there
are already many books on happiness.
CONCLUSION
The idea behind the image or metaphor of steps or ladders
is to get higher, better. When I was doing a lot of work in spirituality I noticed that the key noun after the verb, "is" is "way" - as in road, path, steps, climb, movement...." As in Spirituality is a way to ...." Robert Frost features the word "road" - as in "The Road Less Traveled [Cf. M. Scott Peck's, best seller The Road Less Travelled" - or Two roads diverged in a yellow wood." Taoism - pronounced in English "dowism" - has at its root the word "tao" meaning way. Buddhism talks about the 8 fold path. Today I'm stressing the image of steps.
