“Nemo dat quod non habet.” (No one can give what he does not have.)
I recalled this age-old truism while reflecting on Jesus’ parable in Lk 6:39-45. Jesus said that we cannot hope to show someone the way if we cannot see the way ourselves, “Can a blind person guide a blind person?”
As Jesus warned, we will surely bring about mutual self-destruction, disaster, and chaos when we try to lead another without seeing and knowing the road ourselves, “Will not both fall into a pit?”
No matter how good our intentions are or how strongly we desire to help others or make a positive difference, we cannot bring goodness into our world unless our hearts are first of all filled with goodness, “A good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good, but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil.”
In short, we cannot fake goodness. We either have it from our hearts or we don’t. We only can try to fake it through appearances and nice speeches. Sirach reminds us of two things that help us to know how good we are.
First, our speech shows the goodness or lack of goodness in our hearts, “When a sieve is shaken, the husks appear; so do one’s faults when one speaks.” We must reflect on our inner talk and spoken words to gauge the goodness in our hearts. Our cursing, swearing, lying, and slanderous words show the evil in our hearts while our blessing, hopeful, forgiving, and understanding words show the goodness we have within. Jesus affirmed that our words reflect the state of our hearts too, “For from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks.”
Secondly, our attitude to suffering helps us to realize the level of interior goodness, “As the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace, so in tribulation is the test of the just.”(Sir 27:4-7) Suffering and pain help us face the truth about our goodness or lack of goodness. We just cannot pretend about our goodness when the pains and trials of life come about. Our real selves will become manifest to us and to others in such painful moments.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we see today all the evil and suffering all around us. It is so easy to point fingers at the leaders in our Church and in the world and blame them for all the carnage before our eyes. Ironically, the leaders in the Church attribute all the evil in the Church to the Church not being synodal or inclusive enough. But we hardly ask ourselves what exactly we are bringing from the store in our own hearts.
The truth is that no matter whom we blame, or what we think the Church should be, what we bring depends on what we have stored in our hearts. We can either bring good from our good hearts or we can aggravate the evil in the world from our evil hearts. Until our hearts are filled with goodness as they should be, we can never bring goodness into our Church and world. On the contrary, we will be like the blind who bring about mutual destruction because we are trying to perform good works that do not flow from good hearts.
The only reasonable option for us is to examine and cultivate our inner goodness today. We can do this in two ways.
First, we must have a true and life-giving union with Jesus Christ. He is that life-giving vine who communicates divine goodness to us. We are the branches able to bear fruit only because we remain united with Him and in Him, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.”(Jn 15:5) Apart from Him, we have no authentic goodness, we cannot do any supernatural good, and we end up bringing chaos and confusion into the world.
We remain united with Him through a fervent prayer life. This is how we encounter the only transforming love of God for us. This is the love that Zacchaeus encountered in Lk 19:1-10 that changed him completely and made him overflow in goodness to others, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anything, I return if fourfold.” Imagine the good that will come to our world when we have such powerful personal transformations through God’s love.
We remain united with him also through the sacraments. We allow Him to deliver us from our evils within in the sacrament of Reconciliation. We receive from the Eucharist the grace that empowers us for Christlike action in our world.
In addition to our union with Christ, we must also practice the virtues that we find in Jesus. We know that practice makes perfect because habits are formed through practice. But practicing habits also add to the goodness of our nature. The more that we practice the virtues embodied by Jesus Christ, the more that we begin to love what He loves and detests what He detests. This is how we become more like Him in this world, “When fully trained, every disciple will be like His teacher.”
St. Paul reminds us of the greatest evils in our earthly life – sin and death, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death is your sting? The sting of death is sin.” Jesus, by His undying goodness in death and resurrection, is definitively victorious over these evils and He invites us to share in this His victory of goodness over all evils, “Thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”(1Cor 15:54-58)
We are in living communion with this same victorious Savior in every Holy Communion we receive. Sin, death, and grave have no power over us anymore because of our union with the risen Christ. In Him, we have access to the only inner goodness that can overcome all the evils in this world and in the Church.
In the face of so much evil and death, how can we continue pretending to be good and blaming those who are not? We cannot focus on evils but on cultivating our inner goodness in Christ. That is the only goodness that we have. And that is the only goodness that we can give.
Glory to Jesus!!! Honor to Mary!!!
Image credit: “Sacred Heart of Jesus” (detail) by Chambers | via Restored Traditions
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About the author:
Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, is a Roman Catholic priest and religious of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary currently serving in the Philippines. He teaches theology and is a seminary formator for candidates to the priesthood and religious life. Father also gives Ignatian retreats and serves as spiritual director to many of the lay, religious, and clergy in the area.
He earned his first degree in Physics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria. Ordained in 2009, he studied at St. John’s seminary, in Brighton, Massachusetts. Father has an STL/MA in Moral Theology from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila, Philippines.
Father Moneme blogs at https://toquenchhisthirst.wordpress.com/.
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