Wednesday, August 15, 2007

"I Am A Failure !", Fr. Thomas J. Reese, S.J.

A Faith Journey
I have never been comfortable picking just one Scripture passage to sum up my faith.

I remember a Berkeley professor once trying to teach humility to a group of bright political science students: “The world is very big. The human mind is very small.” Add God to that equation and we are very small indeed. No single passage can sum up God or our relation to him.

In addition, we change. As a youth, I studied Scripture trying to find out how to make myself a better person. “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” I used the Scriptures as a mirror to find imperfections and overcome them. Jesus was the coach that urged me on.

Needless to say, I never reached perfection. I got quite fed up with Jesus as coach and began to see him as a leader inviting me to join him in his mission. “Come follow me.” Flawed though I might be, he still had a job for me.

I never was certain exactly what he wanted me to do, but somehow jobs fell into my lap. I worked for justice first by lobbying for tax reform and then by writing on political and economic issues for America magazine. Then I used my political science training to help people understand the church in a series of books (Archbishop, A Flock of Shepherds and Inside the Vatican). Most recently I worked for reform in the church by encouraging discussion and debate as editor of America.

“Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.” Looking back, I recognize that every reform effort in which I have been involved has failed: reforming myself, the tax system, politics and the church. What gives me hope is the recognition that Jesus also failed. He was arrested and killed and his disciples ran away.

Yet in failing, he succeeded. The only way to the resurrection is through the cross. Christianity has been failing for 2,000 years. That is a scandal like the cross is a scandal. Only when we accept the inevitability of failure but keep going anyway, can we be saved. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.” If we could save ourselves we would not need Jesus.

That is where I am today. Someday, I hope to experience the resurrection.

Original article (here)

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