Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan Friar of the 13th Century took the place of St. Francis of Assisi, as the leader of this new and strange order, the Friars Minor. They became known as the Mendicants or literally, the ones who beg. Before becoming the head of the newly formed religious order, he was a professor in Paris, along with St. Thomas Aquinas and other great masters of the time. As a scholar, he wrote many books but one book, The Journey into the Mind of Christ became popular as it explored mysticism. This book explores St. Paul’s command, “put on the mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16).
Putting on the mind of Christ takes every thought and deed captive, judging not by human understanding, but divine. Putting on the mind of Christ embraces contemplation, a supernatural experience in which we know God is truly present in our soul. Mysticism journeys into the mind of Christ, seeking union with God. A supernatural experience, mystics, as St. Bonaventure and St. Francis were, behold the beauty and glory of God experientially.
Mendicants, the Franciscans Dominicans, changed the thinking of Christianity. Monks living in monasteries, teaching and directing Christians in their journey of faith, the Franciscans lived a radically different life. They embraced poverty, traveled around, walking from village to village preaching the Gospel. Daily they begged for all their needs: food clothing, and shelter. They even begged for the water they drank knowing that in asking another for their needs they gave others the opportunity to fulfill the Gospel message, “Whoever gives to one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he shall not lose his reward” (Mt 10:42).
This lifestyle radically re-orientated the spiritual life. No longer living safe in their monasteries, the mendicants took to heart Jesus’ admonition: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23).
Religious fervor inspired them to live completely as Christ did. They left their nets, their boats, their families, their businesses, and homes to follow Christ. Intense, extreme, exciting, yet Jesus called them to an ultimate commitment. To give their very lives to the Lord just as Jesus would give his life upon the cross for the salvation of the world.
Disciples of Jeus, those of the past and us of the present, surrender everything to the Lord becoming dependent upon God’s divine providence. This total dependency upon divine providence, as St. Paul understands, knows: “God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Php 4:19). In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul continues explaining the power and presence of God’s providence, exhorting and encouraging,
That you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, to lead a life worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Col 1:9–10).
Worthiness of life comes not from earning and gaining, accomplishing great deeds by our own will and power, but knowing that “God qualifies us” (Col 1:12). He calls us to a radical re-orientation of our lives as He did St. Bonaventure, as He did of his disciples. They abandoned their lives into the hands of God. In so doing, God richly blessed them.
St. Bonaventure inspired by the apostles, followed the wisdom of Jesus wholeheartedly. In his discourse with the Rich Young Man who seeks holiness, Jesus wisely invites the man, invites us all to perfection.
If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me” (Mt 19:21).
This radical re-orientation, truly an extreme contradiction requested by Jesus upon the young man, creates an unheard level of commitment. Not only is he to sell everything: houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name’s sake, (Mt 19:29), and to give it all to the poor, but to re-orientate his life. Jesus tells him, “Own nothing and beg for everything.” This is the radical mindset that Jesus invites all his disciples to embrace. Yet there is a catch, a promise that is incomprehensible, a paradox. He who comes and follows me radically and drastically, will receive not only a 100-fold, but eternal life. Or as Jesus famously taught, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24).
Invited to enter the mind of Christ, a radical way of thinking: death brings life, challenges even the most ardent followers. The demands for discipleship cost more than money can buy. Discipleship costs our lives. Christ explains the heart of the discipleship when asked about the great law. In Deuteronomy, Moses gives the great commandment, known as the Shema:
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might (Dt 6:4–5).
Journeying into the mind of Christ, love becomes more than a feeling, but a binding of hearts, minds, and strengths into one will. United to the Divine, we want nothing less than a perfect union. Every other love fades in comparison. Only that mystical, contemplative, and supernatural love of Christ satisfies. In exchange, all our loves become enlivened. Completely bonded to the mind and heart of Christ, our lives flourish. We become a joyful wellspring of life and love.
Discipleship, to become a true follower of Christ, calls for a commitment that many today reject. His call entails more than reading the Scriptures. It is not enough to call yourself Christian: to be baptized, sacramentalize, even catechized. We are to live as Christ lives: to be another Christ privately and publicly. To be a disciple, as Jean-Pierre de Caussade famously writes, “Perfection consists in doing the will of God, not in understanding His designs” (Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence, Bk 1, ch. 1, sec. iv, p. 9; http://www.cse.yorku.ca/~andy/spiritual/Abandonment.pdf ). Total abandonment into God’s providence redirects our minds. No longer do we insist upon our plans and proposals, but we allow providence to mold us according to his divine design. God forms us as the sculptor molds his clay.
Trusting in God’s providence, not our own designs, bewilders us. In the darkness of bewilderment Divine Providence enlightens us as the morning sun enlightens the dawn. Fortified by the dawning of God’s design, our minds understand and embrace the journey with complete abandonment. In this abandonment, losing our life into the life of Christ, God’s mind embraces ours and we embrace his.
Our journey into the mind of Christ embraces complete self-giving. Jesus Himself witnesses to the total self-giving telling us, “He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt 10:39). Jesus expresses his mind completely in this proverb. Not only does He express his thought, but He invites us to acquire it. In acquiring Christ’s mind, at first it appears dark and difficult. But as the mind begin to understand God’s ways versus our ways, the journey powerfully moves us to think and act as Christ. This journey into the mind of Christ, then, fulfills our deepest longings because “He who is infinitely above me is yet so deeply within me that he is my true interiority” (Pope Benedict XVI Sunday, 25 September 2011).