Abbot Michael offered this reflection during a Reconciliation Service for the School on October 19, 2023.

Path on the grounds (golf course)

From the Gospel according to John (6:37-40). Jesus said to the crowds: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me, because I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. And this is the will of the one who sent me, that I should not lose anything of what he gave me, but that I should raise it on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.”

We just heard, “This is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life.” God wants us all to make it to heaven, and Jesus has made it possible for us each of us. Jesus tells us, “I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” But it is up to us – each of us – to come to him. It is up to each of us to accept the salvation Jesus has earned for us. What is it that would lead us to reject God and salvation? What can separate us from him, from God, but our own sins? Our sins do separate us from God, because our sins are all acts of self-will, self-interest, selfishness, and selfishness is most un-Godlike. Jesus himself tells us, “I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.”

To be Godlike is to be creative and loving, to be a builder in and of what is called the Kingdom of God, that new order in creation of God’s total love and justice and presence, the order which Jesus began and in which we are meant to live. To be selfish, self-willed, to be careless of the rights of others, oblivious to the needs and feelings of others, is to be destructive of God’s creative order and destructive of the order in our fellow human beings. To be selfish, to sin, is to tear down a piece of God’s kingdom. And we all do it. It is this selfishness that destroys relationships, friendships, memberships, marriages, destroys respect and trust between human beings. When we as individuals focus on our individual advantage, our individual gain, our own pleasure at the expense of others or against the moral laws written in nature by God, this drives a wedge between our own selves and the God who loves us.

Doors into nave

When we lie, when we cheat, when we steal, when we speak ill of others, even just a little, we are diminishing God’s life, love and presence within us, and we are contributing to the host of problems and evils which beset this world and its people. Most of our individual sins don’t totally break our relationship with God, but totally broken relationships with God or anyone else do not come out of nowhere. A single act of a mortal sin is not committed suddenly by someone who was up till then a saint. No, just like broken friendships and relationships, our relationship with God gets broken little by little, as a negative attitude builds, as faults taken for granted pile up offense upon offense and love is buried. It can happen all too easily just by ignoring our responsibility to God for the strength of our relationship with him. It can happen all too easily by focusing on our own entertainment, our own immediate concerns.

We forget God all too easily, because he does not force himself on us. Real love never forces itself on another. Real loves gives and waits for a response. To one to whom much has been given, much will be required. we have all been given much. How will we respond? Someday we each will die, and we will get what we worked for. If we lived working on our relationship of love with God and neighbor, if we have given of ourselves, we will have that relationship perfected in happiness in heaven. If we worked for our own self, then we will be by our own self in a frozen, lonely eternity in hell. That would have been our choice against what God wanted for us. We would be wise to do whatever we can to avoid such a horrible eternity. We would be wise to do whatever we can in this life to keep our relationship with God strong, to apologize and make amends for our faults and for our forgetting God, for our acts of selfishness. We have nothing to fear, because Jesus says I will not reject anyone who comes to me. Today you have the opportunity to come to him, to strengthen your relationship with God, to revitalize your friendship with God, to apologize and make amends in the sacrament of reconciliation. God waits for us. He has all the time in the world. We, however, do not.
 

Abbot Michael Brunner, O.S.B. is abbot of Portsmouth and the School’s Director of Spiritual Life.