The Longest Journey

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    July 26, 2024

I saw a pamphlet recently that asked this intriguing question: “Did you know you could actually miss heaven by 18 inches?” It seems that 18 inches is the average distance between the top of a person’s head and a person’s heart. (And I just know that now you’re all going to be looking for a measuring tape or a ruler to check this out. Remember, that’s the average distance.) 18 inches is really about two things: our call to avoid judgment and criticism, which we imagine to reside in the mind, the head. And our call to practice mercy and tenderness, which we imagine as residing in the heart. That call is at the heart of today’s Gospel.

The Gospel passages that bookend today focus on the gracious and unfailing tenderness of the Holy One. Finding rest in the heart of God–that’s what we do especially during a time of retreat. Coming closer to the Holy One with our exhaustion and our worry and our heartache and also our joy, our delight, our dreams. Perhaps finding in a time of retreat a new clarity or a sense of what it means to be held in grace.

So with so much mercy and tenderness on either side of today’s readings, it seems a bit jarring to hear today’s Gospel (Matthew 12:1-8). Here the Pharisees see the hungry disciples picking heads of grain and eating them. The disciples were hungry, yes. And  it was the Sabbath, yes. But the Pharisees see only right doctrine, not right relationship with God, others, and themselves. They pass judgment and condemn the actions they interpret as breaking the Sabbath. It seems they haven’t traveled those 18 inches between the head and the heart, between criticism and compassion.

Jesus reveals to the Pharisees their distance from others but also their distance from themselves. Did they fear bringing before God all they did not accept in themselves? Did they fear their shadow being brought into the light? We might wonder: Do we?

Jesus inhabited our human condition fully so he understands that sometimes we get hungry and tired and anxious, whether it’s the Sabbath or not. Jesus understands this because he’s so close and so engaged in our way of being in this world.

As a parent or mentor or teacher or really anyone who works with children, we may sometimes come across suspicious-looking activity. You know the look that says, “We’re up to no good!” As a principal, I learned from experience to pause and give the benefit of the doubt, especially when the activity was engaged in by the usual suspects. My learning was this: that I could save myself a whole lot of grief and frustration if I set judgment aside and instead asked the culprits: “Could you tell me what’s going on here?”

And you know what I learned? That about 90% of the time, there was an innocent explanation for the behavior I interpreted as mischief. And let’s be honest, the other 10% was exactly what I suspected! But I must have practiced this a lot because over time, the boys would sometimes stop me in the hallway and say, with a big grin on their faces, “Sister, could you tell us what’s going on here?”

Pausing and suspending judgment can be a very good thing, can’t they? Jesus certainly thought so. And so did the psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. He once defined healthy adult maturity this way: “A state in which tenderness prevails.” A state in which tenderness prevails. During this retreat perhaps we’ve been asking ourselves, “Does tenderness prevail in me?”

Let’s pray for the grace to embody tenderness as Jesus did. To be the conduit of compassion. To insist on love against all evidence and repeat as many times as necessary. To travel those 18 inches between the head and the heart and become the face of love in our beautiful yet wounded world. May it be so!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on a time when you experienced compassion and tenderness rather than harsh judgment or criticism.
What did the acceptance of another person feel like? look like? sound like?
Ask the Holy One to grow your spaciousness of heart so you may offer a judgment-free zone to someone in need.

Featured Image: Bart LaRue, Unsplash

NOTE:
This reflection was originally offered on July 19 during a directed retreat at the Sisters of St. Joseph Center for Spirituality in Ocean Grove, NJ. The reflection has been adapted for this blog. Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of that directed retreat, including for me as a guest director.

Please hold in your prayer my Congregation, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Scranton) as we gather for our annual Assembly July 26-28. Thank you.

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