During
the coming five Sundays our readings will be from the sixth chapter
of the Gospel of St. John. This is the chapter about the multiplication
of the loaves and fish and the one in which the Johanine teaching
on the Eucharist is given. The Chapter begins with one of the key
problems that Jesus had to deal with in his ministry. "After
this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, near Tiberius,
and large crowds followed him because of the miraculous signs they
saw when he healed the sick." In v.14 we are told, "when
the people saw this sign that Jesus had given, they said, 'this is
really the prophet, he who is to come into the world.' Jesus realized
that they would come and take him by force to make him king: so he
fled to the hills by himself."
The
perennial problem of Jesus was that in his compassion he reached out
to help people in their needs: he healed them and gave them food and
drink. He always did these things as a sign of something greater,
something higher to which he was calling people. More often than not,
people missed the higher message. They just wanted to have their needs
satisfied in the easiest possible way. They tended to seek him out
as a magical healer and not hear the call to expansion and growth
that he was making to them. Making him king would be a shortcut in
solving many problems.
As
this same tendency exists today in all religious people, and in our
practice of prayer, we will explore these issues in some depth. We
will try to explain something about the human personality and show
how our prayer can lead us to retardation as well as to growth.
The
newborn child is totally centered in itself. It's only concern is
physical survival. It's own pleasure and the avoidance of pain are
it's only preoccupation. It lives on the physiological level. It is
totally subjective and everything else is an object for it's satisfaction.
Its only concern is to get food and warmth and to avoid the pain caused
by their absence. If the child is not given what it needs it will
become dysfunctional. If the child is allowed to dominate all others
by its needs it will also have a problem in the future.
As
the child grows up it begins to realize that pleasure comes not only
from objects but also through people. It enters into the psycho-social
level. If it smiles Mommy smiles and there is a greater warmth in
her hug. There is pleasure in approval, acceptance, achievement, relationship.
Here again imbalance, too much or too little, will form a dysfunctional
personality. As it develops further the child becomes aware that there
is something beyond things and people; there are values and ideals.
It begins to learn that satisfaction has often to be denied for the
sake of values. It learns that a toy belongs to someone else and that
rights have to be respected. It learns a little about truth and beauty
and transcendence. It learns to go beyond what is perceived by the
senses.
Twenty
years ago, Frs. Luigi Rulla and Franco Imoda, S.J. with Sister Joyce
Ridick, S.S.C of the Institute of Psychology at the Gregorian University
in Rome, applied the findings of modern depth psychology to the stages
of one's development and came up with a theory of the structure and
content of the personality. This has become the basis on which much
of the motivational testing of people entering religious life and
other professions is now based. When God gives us himself, when he
becomes incarnate, he first gives us ourselves. The better we understand
ourselves - the temple in which the Divine dwells - and know how to
live within ourselves, the better we will be able to accept that great
gift of God's call in our lives and respond to it more richly. On
the other hand if we are stuck in a particular stage of our development
or if there are serious inconsistencies in our personalities it will
be very difficult for us to accept and respond to the Divine Gift.
From
the point of view of structure the personality is made up of the ideal-self
and the actual-self. The ideal-self is conscious and made up of a
combination of values and attitudes which we believe motivate us and
would at least like to think are the driving force in our lives. The
actual-self comes from the needs, the predispositions to action that
adhere in our very human nature. These may be either conscious or
unconscious.
The
principal contents of the personality are values, attitudes and needs.
By values we mean the ideals of life that a person proposes to live
for. The central value in a person's life could, for example, be accumulation
of riches or union with God. These would be very contrasting values.
Attitudes are specific tendencies towards action like aggression,
forgiveness, compassion, greed. Needs, as I said, are a sort of magnet
that draw us towards action that inhere in the organic, emotional,
and spiritual dimension of the person. Modern psychology has listed
about twenty fundamental human needs; for example, the need for food,
love, sex, autonomy, knowledge.
The
attitudes may serve to satisfy or express either needs or values.
For example, I may be kind to others because I need approval (a self-centered
need) or because I know the value of love (an other-centered value).
For this reason the attitudes are of prime importance. They are the
link between values and needs. It is in the attitudes and the behavior
that they lead to that inconsistencies are most often shown.
The
first major inconsistency can be between the ideal-self and the actual-self.
For example, the Christian virtue of charity may express itself in
many ways; in the service of others, in apostolic prayer, in humble
respect for the opinion of others. But each of these concrete expressions
may have a motivation that is different from charity. The service
of others may come from a strong need to be praised, a selfish need.
One might want to be seen to pray so that people will think one is
holy. Humble submission could come from a feeling of inferiority or
fear. This inconsistency is all the more serious when it is unconscious;
when one is acting out of self-centered needs and may even believe
consciously that one is altruistic.
There
is social consistency or inconsistency depending on whether the needs,
conscious or unconscious, are compatible with both the values and
attitudes of the individual. A person may express the value of love
for the poor and the need to serve, but the attitude of indulgence
and of avoiding all forms of suffering may be totally inconsistent
with the expressed value and need.
This
rather technical explanation may be illustrated more simply from the
Our Father. This prayer that Jesus gave us begins by setting a value,
an ideal before us. "Holy be your name, Your kingdom come. Your
will be done on earth…" After setting up this value system
as priority, there is a very realistic turning to needs: "Give
us today our daily bread (needs)." Our needs are of paramount
importance and we cannot even aspire to transcendent values if they
are not met. But our needs make us insecure and fearful, and so because
of them we often infringe on the space and the rights of others. So
to live with each other we need the proper attitudes. "Forgive
us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."
It
is impossible to be transcendent (Your will be done), without enjoying
basic needs, and having the proper attitudes (forgiveness). But neither
can we transcend if we are totally focused on our needs and lack the
right attitude (forgiveness). The Our Father is a prayer for consistency
between the transcendent values, the basic needs, and the necessary
attitudes.
In
today's Gospel story we see Jesus feeling frustrated because the people
are seeking their basic needs and are failing to recognize his call
for a change of attitudes and a deepening of values. In today's world
we see most people turning to religion and prayer with the same mentality.
A lot of our prayer is asking for God's assistance in alleviating
our basic needs but there is little expression of a desire to change
one's unforgiving attitudes, or to being open to the transcendent,
"thy will be done."
Meditation,
on the other hand, is prayer without words, without focusing on any
level - needs, attitudes, or values. It is a prayer of just being
silently in Presence and allowing truth and consistency to gradually
pervade one's being.
