WHERE MISERY & MERCY MEET

Having seen some of the poverty of Paris and having heard Jean (Vanier) say last Sunday that we are called not just to serve the poor but to be poor, I was struck forcefully by his words. To choose the little people. the little joys, the little sorrows, and to trust that it is there that God will come close - that is the hard way of Jesus. Again I felt a deep resistance toward choosing that way.

I am quite willing to work for and even with little people, but I want it to be a great event! Something in me always wants to turn the way of Jesus into a way that is honorable in the eyes of the world. I always want the little way to become the big way. But Jesus' movement towards the places the world wants to move away from cannot be made into a success story.

Every time we think we have touched a place of poverty, we will discover greater poverty beyond that place. There is really no way back to riches, wealth, success, acclaim, and prizes. Beyond physical poverty there is mental poverty, beyond mental poverty there is spiritual poverty, and beyond that there is nothing, nothing but the naked truth that God is mercy.

It is not a way we can walk alone. Only with Jesus can we go to the place where there is nothing but mercy. It is the place from which Jesus cried, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It is also the place from which Jesus was raised up to new life.

The way of Jesus can be walked only with Jesus. If I want to do it alone, it becomes a form of inverse heroism as fickle as heroism itself. Only Jesus, the Son of God, can walk to that place of total surrender and mercy. He warns us about striking off on our own: "cut off from me, you can do nothing." But he also promises. "Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty" (John 15:5)

I can see clearly why action without prayer is so fruitless. It is only in and through prayer that we can become intimately connected with Jesus and find strength to join him on his way.

- Excerpt from "The Road to Daybreak - A Spiritual Journey", by Henri J.M. Nouwen